


Revelations

by Veeebles



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Dark Thoughts, Demon AU, Demon! Billy, Established Relationship, Exorcisms, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gay Billy Hargrove, Gay Sex, I will add more tags as I go, M/M, Posessed Billy, The Upside Down, alternating povs, demon manipulation, depictions of violence, mentioned - Freeform, mind flayer - Freeform, the gang all come together to save Billy, watching too much Buzzfeed Unsolved did this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-04-24 07:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19168618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veeebles/pseuds/Veeebles
Summary: Steve clamps his mouth shut and grips the wooden bannister in his hand until his knuckles turn white and he’s sure his nails will be embedded in the wood.“Come here,” he says, praying, willing Billy to just move, to tell him its all just a joke and come walking forwards and sweep him up in his arms and take him upstairs to bed.He watches Billy’s jaw twitch as he grinds his teeth and his heart is seriously going to go into cardiac arrest or something.“Baby, please,” his voice is nothing more than a whisper at this point and he nearly cries when he sees Billy’s eyes soften and his shoulders slump slightly, “please, just, come here.”Billy looks at him for a long time, a stampede of emotions storming through his eyes.“I can’t.





	1. Chapter 1

It was Johnathan who suggested looking into Demonology.

A secret meeting with the kids in the basement of the Wheeler’s house had them pouring over borrowed library books as well as Nancy’s extensive notes on the Upside Down. Steve had described everything to them, how Billy had suddenly grown distant, how he didn’t appear to sleep much or even at all anymore, how he shied away from Steve’s touch and barely looked at him anymore. How Billy suddenly had an aversion to his religious medallion necklace.

Billy _never_ took it off, not when he was sleeping, not when he was showering, _never_. Then, suddenly, after that night in the Upside Down when he had fallen to the floor after the thing pulsing in the wall had sprayed all over his face. Steve had rushed to his side, frantically brushed away the residue from his skin and pulled him to his feet. Billy had looked at him terrified for a heartbeat, then suddenly his grin was back and he was telling him he worried too much like a mother hen. He had tugged his bandanna back up over his mouth and continued on like nothing had happened.

An hour later, they had been walking along through the tunnels in silence when Billy had yelped, hands clawing at his chest until he had ripped the necklace off his chest and threw it to the ground like it had burned him. Steve had watched in confusion as the blond glared down at it, bewildered and angered and something else on his face as he stared down at the dull gold glinting on the wet ground. He had cast a worried glanced to Steve then quickly snatched it up, shoved it into the pockets of his jeans and stalked off, like nothing had happened. If Steve ever tried to ask him about it afterwards, he either made some joke to laugh it off or completely changed the subject.

Steve hadn’t seen the necklace on his chest ever since. So, naturally, Steve started paying more attention to him after that.

Billy had always been strong, he was the strongest fighter of their gang, swinging his big axe at the demo dogs, cutting through them like they were ears of corn. But, after that day, his strength seemed to have multiplied.

A few nights later, Steve watched out the corner of his eyes while Nancy spoke, the gang all gathered after their latest trip into the tunnels to plan their next night. Billy didn’t seem to be listening to her which was unusual. Billy was gifted with this stuff, he knew how to fight, he was _good_ at figuring out strategies, what move to do next, how to work out the next hurdle in their fight. He was usually right there by Nancy’ side, peering over the maps and notes with her, leading the conversation with her, suggesting tactics, places to go, methods to use. Now, he stood apart from the group, eyes cast off in to the shadows. His nostrils flared, head tilted to the side and he seemed to be somewhere else, listening to something they couldn’t hear. Steve nudged his elbow against his arm gently, intending to subtly ask him what was wrong but the blond just jumped, fixed him with a wild, foregoing gaze before masking it, shrugging Steve off like nothing had happened.

Then, Johnathan had mentioned Demonology.

They had met at he and Will’s house, a secret meeting without the kids and Billy. They huddled down on the floor of Jonathan's room and the guy had pulled out an old, well used book and set it down in front of them.

“After Will had his crazy possession thing, I started looking in to stuff about it. I found this book in the library, it has a lot of information about Demons and how to identify and deal with them. By the sound of it, Steve, Billy’s got almost all of them.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Steve had exclaimed, looking to Nancy to see how she reacted to this. To his surprise, she had her gaze set on the book, frowning in that thoughtful way she did when she was trying to figure something out. She didn’t look at all surprised which had Steve wondering how much of this she and Johnathan had discussed this when he wasn’t around.

“Billy’s not a demon, Johnny, he’s an asshole and a complete pain in the ass but he’s not a _Demon_ , come on, Demons are some fairy tale shit.”

Johnathan shrugs, “hey, we all thought this Upside Down stuff was fairy tale shit out of that game the kids are all obsessed with. Do you really think we should be ruling anything out these days?”

That shut Steve up and he sat frowning down at the yellowed pages of the book while Johnathan flipped through, explaining what he had read up on.

Aversion to religious medallions and icons, check. Apparently salt is a bad thing too and Steve‘s blood runs cold when he remembers sharing a tray of fries with Billy in the Arcade just last night and how confused he had been when Billy had reached for a salted chip and yelped, pulling his hand back like they had burned him. Steve had been munching on a mouthful and knew fine well they were barely even warm after been sitting on the table for a while. Billy had suddenly lost his appetite and didn’t try eating any more of them.

“Apparently signs of possession include scratches and bruises on the body, have you seen anything like that on him, Steve?”

He represses a shiver at Nancy’s question. He’s not even sure how to answer. Billy’s body is always a collage of purple and blue, an array of bruises and cuts but he knows where they come from. He’s _seen_ where they come from, when he drops Max off or the rare time he comes to sneak in to Billy’s bedroom window and winds up standing with his heart in his throat in the shadowed drive as he watches his father paint him bloody before slamming the door in his face. If this shit was true, he could never tell which marks were from his father and which ones would be from Demon possession. He can’t say that to Nancy and Johnathan, though, Billy’s sworn him to secrecy when it comes to his father’s treatment of him and he would never betray the hard-earned trust the guy has installed in him. Instead, he just shrugs, avoiding her gaze as he flicks through the pages, languages he doesn’t recognise and sigils he’s never seen covering page after page.

They thankfully don’t press him for details, moving on to the next suggestion.

Instead, they list off other sings of possession they have read of in this book and the more they mention, the more pieces fit in to the puzzle and the more the pit in Steve’s stomach grows. All the signs had been right there, and Steve had been too dumb to notice.

Eventually, he shoots up, slamming the book shut and tugs his cigarettes out mumbling he needs a smoke and all about darting out the room and to the front porch. He’s well in to his second cigarette when Nancy comes out, closing the door behind her quietly, wrapping her arms around herself against the Hawkins cold. She sidles up to lean against the wall where Steve is pretty much glued to at this point and fixes him with a worried gaze.

“I know this all sounds crazy and overwhelming,” she starts, speaking softly to him like he’s a scared animal ready to dart off at any given moment. Its how he feels. His skin is itchy, and his heart is thundering and his palms sweaty. He rolls the filter of his cigarette between his thumb and finger and blows out a steady stream of smoke.

Its too much. Too much to deal with, to think about. He thought the Upside Down was bad enough, now he’s got to deal with this shit? With the possibility that his boyfriend is possessed by a Demon? The guy that has become his rock and source of reassurance and courage in the worst times. The guy that Steve sees as steady as a tree, rooted into the ground come rain or storm that Steve can cling to like a lifeline. He wants Billy safe. He _needs_ Billy safe. He doesn’t know what he would do if he ever lost him.

“What the Hell am I going to do, Nance?”

She leans against him, sets her head down on his shoulder and he throws away his smoke, thudding his head back against the wall of the house.

“I know it wounds awful, Steve, but you need to find out if it’s all true.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“We’ll figure out out, we’ll help you. We’re all in this together now, Steve, Billy too. If this is what we think it is, we will save him just like we saved Will.”

The lump in his throat chokes him and he lets Nancy wrap him up in her arms like a mother comforts her baby. He lets the tears fall and focuses on the part of him that thinks how different she feels to Billy and how much he misses the guy he hasn’t seen all day and how much he wants to be wrapped up in his arms instead.

Three days later, he’s following Billy thought the front door of his house, their arms laden with take out pizza and cheap beers. Billy is all smiles and usual cockiness. Steve would be able to argue that there is nothing at all wrong with him. If he really wanted to, he could easily convince himself that everything that he’s seen over the past few weeks was a figment of his imagination. He watches Billy tear into the pizza in his usual way, how he smirks and grins at Steve like he always does, how he presses a kiss to his hair and cracks open a beer can like nothing at all is amiss. But Steve’s eyes stray one too many times to his chest, bare of any necklace that has always been as much a part of him as his own skin and his heart hurts with how much he knows he must do this.

He lies with Billy on the couch while they watch a film and tries his best to force his muscles to relax, Billy knows him like the back of his hand and he will notice the second Steve tenses, the second anything is wrong with Steve, Billy always somehow knows and it takes everything Steve’s got to act normal and make sure he suspects nothing.

“I’m hot,” Steve complains, leans forward to tug his jumper off, leaving him in a t-shirt that he thinks might have belonged to Billy once.

Billy smirks at him, eyes glinting when his t shirt riles up to reveal some skin with his movements, “glad I have that effect on you. “

Steve rolls his eyes as he tosses the jumper to the floor, “shut up, you ass, you’re like a furnace.”

“I run hot, baby, got the Cali sun in me,” he tosses Steve an exaggerated wink.

Steve gives him a laugh that sounds forced to his own ears and he prays that Billy doesn’t notice. He doesn’t seem to care, just holds his arms out and folds Steve back into his embrace and he tries to ignore the pit of dread in his gut. Nancy’s voice in the back of his mind saying something about Hellfire burning in place of a soul.

Just this one thing, he tells himself, he just needs to try this one thing and that’s it, he can go back to the way things were and just chalk Billy’s strange behaviour up to something he doesn’t need to worry about. This one thing he needs to try out and its all going to be over.

He waits until Billy’s hands start wandering over his hip, his mouth starts pressing kisses into his hair. He’s been waiting all night for the moment Billy starts to suggest sex and for the first time since they started things between them, he dreads it. He wishes, god, how he wishes he could just go back to regular times when Billy’s touch is something Steve relishes in and can’t wait until Billy kisses him and carries him blindly up the stairs to his bed. Tonight, for the first time ever, Steve wishes the blond would just fall asleep and stay on the couch with him instead.

But, of course, its Billy, the guy who kisses Steve like he’s desperate and needs to be as close to him as Steve does. This is his Billy who he loves, and sex is a pretty big part of their relationship and its natural for them. So, when Billy kisses him firmly then pulls him up off the couch and lets Steve lead them towards the stairs, he follows eagerly, grinning all the while.

Steve’s heart is hammering and the steps to the stairs seem to take an eternity. He feel’s Billy’s fingers in his as he pulls him along behind him. Steve’s eyes dart down to the huge, embroidered rug in the hallway at the base of the stairs, the rug that he’s praying Billy doesn’t notice has been moved about by him, Nancy and Johnathan earlier. Its soft beneath his feet and by the time he crosses it and his feet find the first step of the stairs, Steve thinks he might just throw up.

He has a moment to feel trepidation before his world comes grinding loudly to a halt. He goes to mount the stairs, one foot in front of the other on the first two steps.

Billy’s fingers tug out of his grasp.

He doesn’t turn around. He can’t. He’s frozen on the spot and his heart is thundering and his blood is rushing in his ears and Billy isn’t following him.

He stays frozen on the second step up for what feels like years before he slowly, slowly tuns around.

Billy’s stood on the carpet still. To anyone else, he just looks like he’s paused, like he’s just standing there of his own free will like any other person.

Only, Steve knows he’s not. Steve spent the whole day with Nancy and Johnathan perfecting the huge symbol on the floor, painting with odourless paint each line that makes up the perfect replica of the sigil they found in Johnathan’s demon book. The sigil that they covered up with the huge, expensive rug. The rug that had moved slightly and he can see the tiniest hint of a painted, white line on the rich, mahogany flooring.

His eyes find Billy’s booted feet, trail up those jean clad legs he knows so well, up the muscular torso encased in a barely there shirt, darting reluctantly and against his better judgement to the face he knows better than any other.

Billy looks at him calmly. His jaw is tight, his eyes steady on Steve’s and it’s such an unreadable, unfamiliar look that Steve thinks he might just run out the house and forget all about this.

He’s standing in the centre of the rug, looking down at it, blue eyes trailing over to the line of white paint peeking out the edge and eventually up Steve’s body to meet his eyes once more. Steve forgets how to breathe.

“You’re not coming?” he tries for a normal, unaffected voice but it comes out in a hoarse choke. He suddenly wishes he hadn’t told Nancy and Johnathan he would prefer to be alone with Billy when he did this.

Billy’s face doesn’t move, his expression doesn’t change. His eyes move down to the carpet once more, gazing at the pattern like he’s trying to figure out another battle tactic. They move back to the white line again, then back to Steve.

“What did you do?”

His voice is deeper than Steve’s heard it, his voice wavers with carefully controlled rage and it’s the Billy that he hasn’t seen in a long time standing before him. The Billy that beat him black and blue all those months ago at the Byers.

“I haven’t done anything-”

“- Don’t lie to me.”

Steve clamps his mouth shut and grips the wooden bannister in his hand until his knuckles turn white and he’s sure his nails will be embedded in the wood.

“Come here,” he says, praying, willing Billy to just move, to tell him its all just a joke and come walking forwards and sweep him up in his arms and take him upstairs to bed.

He watches Billy’s jaw twitch as he grinds his teeth and his heart is seriously going to go into cardiac arrest or something.

“Baby, please,” his voice is nothing more than a whisper at this point and he nearly cries when he sees Billy’s eyes soften and his shoulders slump slightly, “please, just, come here.”

Billy looks at him for a long time, a stampede of emotions storming through his eyes.

“I can’t.

Steve can hear his blood rushing in his ears and his head feels light.

“Why not?”

Billy’s shoulders tense again and his hands curl in to fists at his sides.

“Something tells me you know why.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

Billy scoffs and leans down, rips up the huge, heavy rug that took all three of them, him, Nancy and Johnathan to move. He watches with his mouth hanging open as Billy rips it up with one hand, tossing it aside like it weighs nothing and glares down at the painted sigil covering the width of the hallway beneath him.

“Demon trap,” he says, eyes cutting up to meet Steve’s once more.

Steve’s knees wobble beneath him and he clutches harder on to the bannister. He watches, heart racing as Billy moves from the centre of the sigil, scuffing his boots on the floor as he comes closer. He’s got his hands in his pockets now, signature smirk back on his face, stopping when his toes are flush with the very edge, millimetres from the barrier of paint. His face is shadowed slightly at this angle, head tilted to the side slightly and his look is dangerous, it’s something that Steve doesn’t like to see.

“Let me out, Harrington.”

His voice is a low growl. Steve watches those ocean blue eyes blink once and his knees give out beneath him when they turn inky black. Steve’s body folds itself down on the steps beneath him and he can’t stop looking into those eyes as black as night.

“What are you?” His voice is nothing more than a whisper.

Billy barks a laugh, turning and gesturing grandly to the paint, “do you really need to ask, Princess?”

“Don’t call me that.”

Billy smiles, licks his lips, looks at Steve knowingly, “Oh, baby, you love it when I call you that.”

“No, no, you’re not him. You’re not Billy.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but I _am_.”

“No,” Steve says, gripping the bannister tightly as he pulls himself back to his feet, backing away, skirting around the edge of the paint. “You’re a demon. Y-You’re some _thing_ that’s taken over his body. “

Those black eyes flash dangerously, watching Steve shuffling about, “this is _my_ body.”

“No its not. Just, please, give him back, please.”

The thing wearing Billy’s body grins, black eyes dragging over the brunet, “I like you begging.”

“Stop it.”

“Make me.”

“Stop!”

He watches the thing that looks so much like Billy shut his mouth, eyes narrowing as he assesses Steve. His shoulders relax and he cocks a hip, resting his hand on it in a stance that Steve has seen Billy do a million times while pouring over Nancy’s notes on the Upside down and Dustin and Will’s crayon-drawn out maps.

It makes Steve feel sick and his teeth are chattering while his mind scrambles to comprehend the achingly familiar with the hauntingly different.

What do you want with Billy?”

The thing seems to realise that he won’t fool his way out of this. He crosses his arms over Billy’s chest and Steve clings to the wall he finds himself pressed against.

“I’ve been looking for a ticket out of the, ah, what’s it the kids are calling it these days? The Upside Down?”

Steve just stares, grits his teeth against his trembling, unable to look away from those black eyes.

“I tried it on Will, his body wasn’t strong enough to carry me. Nearly broke the kid. Took what I could get at the time. Then this guy comes along, like a treat for a dog. He’s _perfect_. Got so much poison running though him, he’s the perfect vessel for me. And he’s _strong_.”

Steve’s head is reeling. He feels like he’s going to pass out. Billy cocks his head, regards him, smiles slowly.

“Do you know Billy’s name is William too? William Theodore Hargrove.”

Steve’s breath catches in his throat.

“Theodore means _‘God’s gift_ ,’ pretty ironic, huh?”

Billy has never mentioned this to Steve. As far as he knows he’s never told anyone that, he’s never mentioned it to Will. Not even Max knows his full or middle name.

“How do you know that?”

He grins, knows he’s struck a nerve.

“I’m in his head. I know everything about him.”

Steve shakes his head, “no – no -”

Billy grins, “has he told you about his mother? She’s the one that gave him that necklace. Monica. Has he told you how she died? What he did?”

Steve thinks he really will throw up. He wants out of this room, out of this house, away from this _thing._ He claws at the wall and goes to move, wants to grab the phone and call Nancy and get her here. He is an idiot for thinking he can do this by himself.

The Demon seems to jerk, eyes fade from black to familiar blue and he falls to his knees, hands braced on the painted floor, gasping and groaning.

Steve watches in horror, frozen to the spot, that blond head rises and looks at Steve like he’s in pain.

_“Steve.”_

His voice is hoarse and all at once Steve knows its his Billy back.

“Steve – help me. I’ve trapped it. I can hold it back in there. You have to let me out – break the circle! Trap it in here behind me! Steve, please – I can’t hold it back for long!

Steve scrambles forward, grabs the end of his t shirt and furiously scrubs at the painted edge of the sigil. Billy grunts and groans, nails digging into the floor.

“Steve, hurry! Fuck – _hurry_!”

The paint scrubs away and the seal is broken. He surges to his feet, reaches out the grab Billy’s shirt and haul him out but he moves too fast.

Suddenly, he’s thrown against the wall, a hand is wrapped around his throat, feet dangling off the ground. He looks down into eyes as black as night.

The Demon grins up at him, holding him like he weighs nothing.

“Big mistake, Princess.”

The lights flicker, wind whips up as if from nowhere and Steve can’t make a sound, can’t breathe, the hand around his throat is strong and his legs kick wildly.

“Billy is mine, now.”

Steve watches in horror as black veins draw themselves across golden skin. They seem to bleed out from those black eyes, threading their way across his cheeks, down his neck, crawl their way across the skin of the hand that holds Steve firmly.

“B-Billy,” he manages to whimper, voice nothing more than a scratch of steel on stone. His hands claw weakly at the arm that holds him effortlessly and his legs cease their kicking as his world beings to fade to black.

“-please.”

Eyes flash from black to blue and black again.

His vision blackens and his head spins.

The hand releases him and he crumbles to the floor, coughing and spluttering, dragging air into his starved lungs, coughing around his throat that feels red raw.

When he can breathe again and his vision is back to normal, he looks around him.

He’s alone. The front door is thrown wide open.


	2. Chapter 2

This can’t be happening.

Steve feels sick.

He paces the floor of his hallway repeatedly. Across the painted lines of the Demon trap and back to the carpeted floor of the living room. Again and again he paces, head reeling, heart thundering in his chest, breathing fast and fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

This can’t be happening. It _can’t._

Just a week ago everything had been normal. Well, as normal as life in Hawkins could get.

They had been planning surveillance of the tunnels, ordering pizzas with the rest of the gang, driving the kids back and forth to the arcade, the Quarry, the Byer’s house for movie nights. He and Billy had spent night after night in Steve’s big, empty house, wrapped up in one another. They had been happy. Things had been _good._

Now everything had been thrown out of balance and Steve didn’t know how to process it all.

When the Demon had left him crumpled on the floor, gasping for breath and trying his best not to pass out. When he had stopped couching and his vision had stopped being so black around the edges, he had looked around and found himself alone for the first time in weeks.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. The front door stood open and uninviting, a cold chill from the Hawkins wintery air had chilled him to the bone and he had stumbled across, frantically slammed it shut and locked it, pressing his forehead against the wood and breathed in slowly.

When his senses had returned to him, he had run to the phone, punched Nancy’s number in and could have cried when he heard her voice.

Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door that had nearly made him come out of his skin in fright. When he wrenched it open and saw Nancy and Johnathan standing there, looking at him with such concern it had broke him. He had collapsed against her small form, sobbing into her shoulder and let them shuffle him inside, depositing him gently on the couch.

Now, he sat silently, hands clasped in front of him, elbows resting on his knees as Nancy rubbed slow circles into his back through his thin t shirt while Johnathan stood in the hallway, staring down at the demon trap in thought.

 “So, it worked?” He asked, looking over to where Nancy and he sat on the couch.

Steve sighed, feeling the strangest urge to laugh, “yeah, it worked.”

“Then how did he get out?”

His hands curled into fists and Nancy’s hand stopped moving on his back. The air felt thick with tension; Steve felt like he could choke on it.

“I…I let him out.”

“You did what?”

Steve grit his teeth and stood, stepping out of Nancy’s embrace and resumed his pacing, adamantly refusing to look at either of them.

“You don’t know what it was like. It was standing there, sneering at me and he looks just like Billy but he – he sounds so different.”

He stops at the edge of the carpet, where it meets the rich wood of the hallway and chances a look at Johnathan, relieved to see the concern on his face.

“It _knew_ things, about Billy, things he never even told me or even Max, as far as I know.”

_Has he told you about his mother? She’s the one that gave him that necklace. Monica. Has he told you how she died? What he did?_

Those words sent child cascading all over Steve’s skin and she shudders, hugging himself. What the hell did that mean? What the hell did the Demon think it knew? What was it accusing Billy of doing?

“Steve,” Nancy’s voice makes him jump, not expecting her to be so close around him. He turns to her, lets her drape the blanket from the back of the couch around his shoulders. She rubs his arms and looks up at him with so much concern on her face. Steve hates it. He hates feeling so jittery and freaked out. He had dealt with this shit before, with the Upside Down and the Demo Dogs. He was surprised at how much this had freaked him out. It was different when it was so close to home, when it was someone he cared so much for. He cast another glace to Johnathan and saw nothing but concern in his eyes and it warmed his heart, made him feel calmer.

“Steve,” Nancy says again, pulling him back to sit on the couch, Johnathan following and sitting himself on the loveseat opposite them, “tell us what happened, just walk us through it all.”

Steve blew out a sigh, scrubbed his hands over his face and tugged out his packet of reds from his pocket, tucking one between his lips and lit it fast, breathing deep and feeling a bit more grounded.

“Okay. We went to get pizza and some beer, brought them back here and watched a film. Everything was completely normal, just like any other night.”

He takes another drag of his smoke and Johnathan pushes the crystal ash tray his father keeps under the coffee table over to him. Steve gives him an appreciative smile as he leans over, tapping the end of his cigarette on the rim and watched a clump of ash fall into it.

“Then, we went to go upstairs, I held his hand and walked him over to the stairs and he – and he -”

He squeezes his eyes shut and smoked fast, feeling dizzy with it, feels like his body is sinking into the couch, down to the ground, ready to be swallowed up.

“He just stopped walking. It was like there was a wall between us that I couldn’t see. His hand ripped out of mine and he just stood there staring at me like I had betrayed him. I asked him to come upstairs and he said he couldn’t, and that I knew why.”

Steve looks up at Johnathan then, “he _knew_. I don’t know how, but as soon as he was in that trap he knew it. He ripped up the rug like it was nothing and he recognised exactly what it was and that we had figured him out. He _knows_.”

“Okay, okay,” Nancy soothes, rubbing his shoulders again as he smoked to the filter, feeling it burn his lips before stubbing it out, “then what happened, Steve?”

He drags his fingers through his hair, not giving a shit about how messed up it looks.

“It told me it was the one that had possessed Will – or was some part of it. It said that Will was too weak for it.”

Johnathan’s face hardens, a frown creasing his brow as he brakes Steve’s gaze, glaring down at the stubbed-out cigarette.

“It said that Billy was stronger. That he was a perfect… _vessel_.”

He tells them everything else, about how it had tricked him in to thinking that Billy was back, how he had broken the circle and let it out only to be assaulted by it. He told them how it had let him go and fled.

He doesn’t tell them what it had said about Billy’s mother. He isn’t even sure what it means himself. For all he knows, it is a lie. It had tricked him already that Billy was able to fight it off, it could be some Demon trick to make him turn against Billy or trust the Demon enough to tell him more.

Whatever it was trying to do, whether it was true or not, Billy hadn’t told him about it for a reason. He wouldn’t betray him. Especially not now, when Billy had no say in this at all. He isn’t even sure if Billy can hear everything that is going on around him while possessed. Maybe he is asleep inside it. Maybe he is awake and fighting but just isn’t strong enough to win.

Whatever the case, Steve is not going to let this be the end of it. They were going to find him again. They would find him and bring him back.

Nancy and Johnathan were already talking the next step, trying to figure out what would be best to do next. They didn’t know where it had gone to, it could be anywhere by now, maybe it wasn’t even in Hawkins anymore. That terrified Steve enough to demand they didn’t talk that way, not yet.

They agreed they had to tell the rest of the gang what was going on. More minds are better than few and the kids were smart, they probably knew more about this stuff than any of them. Besides, Max could be a big help, if Billy is still in there, maybe she could help them get him back.

“I’m surprised it let you go,” Johnathan says later, when they all sit nursing cups of coffee. Steve sips at his, piled with sugar by Nancy who told him he needed some sugar in him to stop his shuddering.

“I mean, I’m glad, of course that it did,” Johnathan says quickly at Steve’s confused look, “I just mean, it’s a Demon. It was choking you; it could have killed you, but instead it let you go.”

Steve rubs his thumb over the rim of his mug.

“You said its eyes changed from the black to blue before it let you go, didn’t you?” Nancy asks from where she now stands by the fireplace, warming herself by the small flames in the grate.

Steve nods, suppressing a shudder at the memory of those black eyes being so close, the black veins that had cascaded all over the golden skin he used to touch, lick, kiss.

“Maybe Billy was trying to stop it,” she says, “maybe it lost its grip on him for a moment and it was him fighting back that stopped it from hurting you.”

A lump forms in Steve’s throat at the thought. He doesn’t want to think of Billy trapped in there. He can picture him like El describes the head space she goes to. He can see him screaming and punching, trying desperately to fight back control of his own body, about to watch Steve get crushed to death by the thing that had taken him. What if it makes him do horrible things? What if it turns into one of those monsters? What if he’s lost Billy completely and it will turn out the gang has to kill him? He is already haunted by the feeling of his bat swinging in to the slimy flesh of the Demo-dogs. He’s killed countless of them by now. He can still smell them, feel the horrible slime of them, hear the sickening crunch as the nails of his bats sink into their skin. What if its Billy he has to do it to one day?

Steve surges to his feet, stumbling and running to the guest bathroom next to the kitchen, reaching the toilet just in time before emptying his stomach. He retches and retches until he is empty, tears staining his cheeks. He can feel Nancy’s hand at his back, can hear Johnathan running the tap and he is handed a glass of water to rinse his mouth.

“It’s okay, Steve. That’s enough. You’ve been through hell,” Nancy is saying, helping him back to his feet and steering him towards the stairs.

“That’s enough for tonight, Johnathan and I will clean up, you get some rest. We’ll call the gang in the morning and sort all of this out.”

Steve nods in a daze, throat feeling raw, stomach sore and head pulsing.

“Can you stay?” he croaks out, one hand on the bannister, eyes trained on Nancy’s, adamantly refusing to look at the sigil on the floor behind her.

She smiles at him and nods, “of course, Steve, we’ll stay here all night with you. You’re not alone in this.”

He nods, relieved and wants to hug her, tell her how much he appreciates that, how much he is comforted by the both of them being here. His arms feel like lead by his sides, exhaustion drains him, and he can only give a small smile in return and stumbles his way up the stairs to his bed.

He collapses on to the sheets that smell like Billy and gathers his pillow against his chest, wrapping his body around it and burying his face into its plush embrace. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He just sinks into oblivion, dreaming of blue eyes and golden skin.

 

 

 

V

 

 

 

The place is so unnaturally quiet.

He can feel water beneath his bare feet, lukewarm, it reminds him of standing in the shallows at the beach in California at night. The water never seemed to lose the sun’s warmth, even when the moon was high in the sky the sand felt cool against the soles of his feet but the water felt comforting. He loved the beach.

This place isn’t California.

He doesn’t know how he got here. He doesn’t even know where this place is. Its dark, the blackness that surrounds him stretches on for miles and miles.

“Hello?”

His voice has no echo in this place, there is nothing for it to bounce off. It feels suffocating, like he’s under the water as opposed to standing in its shallows. He feels like he’s in a vacuum. It’s some kind of nightmare, it must be.

He tries to remember how he got here. He can’t remember falling asleep. The last thing he knew was Steve, kissing Steve, lying with Steve on the couch in his house, Steve pulling him to his feet with a shy smile on his face, leading him slowly to the stairs.

He remembers Steve’s warm hand in his, fingers entwined. He remembers watching the natural sway of the boy’s hips as he walks, the way Billy’s own t shirt looks on him, remembers thinking he should wrap his arms around him, kiss his neck and just carry him up the stairs.

The last thing he remembers is the feeling of the cold, wooden floor on his bare feet before stepping on to the plush, rich carpet.

Then he blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he was here.

_“You’re not coming?”_

He jerks at that voice.

“Steve?”

He spins and the water wets the bottom of his jeans with his movements. His breath catches in his throat when he sees him standing there.

He’s a few feet away from him, half turned away from him. His hand hangs loosely at his side, as if Billy has just let it go and he peers over to Billy like he’s afraid of what he will say. It’s a look that sets a chill run through Billy’s body, a look he hasn’t seen on the boy’s face for a long time.

Billy surges forward, stumbling through the water that splashes around him with his movements. Steve jerks, eyes widening, looking even more afraid and it stop Billy in his tracks.

_“I haven’t done anything -”_

“What?”

Steve is just staring at him, that expression still on his face, eyes guarded, looking like he is terrified of what Billy might say, what he might do. He clamps his mouth shut and Billy watches the strain in his jaw as he clenches his teeth.

“Steve, it’s me. It’s Billy – what, what is this place? What’s going on?”

Steve doesn’t seem to be able to hear him. Billy comes a little closer and tilts his head to the side. Steve’s eyes still stare off in his direction but its as if he can’t see him standing there in front of him.

_“Come here.”_

“I’m _here_ ,” Billy nearly yells, standing right in front of him now, shifting from foot to foot in an attempt to get those cold eyes to look at him properly, to _see_ him.

_“Baby, please. Please, just, come here.”_

His voice is nothing more than a whisper and his eyes are shining. Hearing him call him his pet name, hearing the desperation in his voice tears at Billy’s chest.

Billy growls, “Steve I’m right here! I’m standing right in front of you!”

He reached out to grab on to Steve’s shoulders and shake him, but he can’t seem to reach. No matter how close he is, how far he reaches, his fingers barely brush the space in front of Steve. The brunet still stands here, looking at him in terror and Billy’s hands start to shake.

_“Why not?”_

“Steve. What the hell is going on? This isn’t funny, Goddamnit, stop it!”

His fingers claw at the space between them, he’s _right_ _there_ , he’s standing so close to him but Billy can’t _reach_ him.

_“I want to hear you say it.”_

“Say what? Steve! Steve, why can’t you hear me? Fucking listen to me!”

_“No, no, you’re not him. You’re not Billy.”_

Billy flinches. Whatever Steve is seeing, its not him. He hopes its not him, doesn’t ever want to see him look at him like this.

_“No, you’re a demon. Y-You’re something that’s taken over his body. “_

Billy can do nothing but stare.

_“No, its not. Just, please, give him back, please.”_

Billy’s hands curl in to fists at his sides and he screams, screams right into Steve’s face and he doesn’t flinch at all. He turns and storms away, yelling and screaming himself hoarse, desperate for something, anything to happen. Is he dead? Is this some kind of purgatory he’s trapped in?

Movement flickers out the corner of his eye and he freezes in his steps, his jeans wet from the knees down with all his movements.

A woman stands a few feet away.

Billy’s blood runs cold in his veins. She looks exactly the same. Her golden hair tumbles in tousled curls down her back, down to her waist, swaying around in a breeze that Billy can’t feel. Her blue eyes that mirror his own are looking at him softly, a small smile on her lips as she gazes across the space to him. Her medallion necklace glints where it sits around her neck. He can still hear Steve speaking behind him, but it’s as if he’s trapped in a bubble, the sound of him fuzzy and far away. His feet stumble forwards and he is shaking by the time he reaches her.

“Mom?”

Her smile widens, her eyes crinkle and she can _see_ him, she’s looking right into his eyes and its like a balm soothing a burn.

“Mom what – how are you here?”

Her smile falters, but her hand rises slow, reaching up to touch his cheek. Just before she reaches him, her eyes widen, her movements falter.

_“How do you know that?”_

Steve’s voice is quiet, his voice trembles and Billy can’t look back, can’t see the look of terror on his face again. His eyes are fixed on his mother’s face, the same expression Steve wears crossing her own features.

Billy watches in horror as her skin changes colour, purple and blue, green and yellow appear here and there. Her eyes shadow in horrible bruises, cuts mar her cheeks, her lip splits, she slouches where she stands and Billy knows her ribs have broken.

He stops breathing when a slit cuts it way across her slender throat, blood trickles out, drenches her clothes, turns the water around her feet red. She chokes and splutters and Billy reaches out to catch her when she falls, but she fades right through his arms, crumples to the wet ground in a heap.

**Has he told you about his mother? She’s the one that gave him that necklace. Monica. Has he told you how she died? What he did?**

The ting doesn’t have a voice. The words are just in his head, like the subtitles to a film, voiceless but present, their meaning burning through his brain.

“No. No, it wasn’t my fault!”

He tears his gaze back to Steve and feels faint when he sees those eyes shift, a shadow of doubt crossing them at the thing’s words.

“No – Steve, no!”

He runs to him.

“Steve!”

Steve jerks and he’s lifted slightly off the ground, water dripping off his sock clad feet, a line around his neck deep red and angry, like some invisible force is holding him up by it. His feet kick and his hands wrap around the invisible thing around his throat, his eyes pop wide and his face slowly turns red.

 _“B-Billy,”_ he rasps out and Billy screams in frustration, never feeling so powerless in his life. He watched the veins pop in the guy’s face, purple tinged around the edges.

“Steve!”

He claws at the space between them and his fingers brush soft fabric. He lurches forward, wrapping around solid, warm skin. He clings to Steve’s chest, entire body trembling as those eyes finally lock to his.

_“-please.”_

“Steve!”

Then he’s gone, his hands are holding nothing more than air. He scrambles around in the water, yelling for Steve, fingers finding nothing in the darkness. He falls to his knees, the water soaking him and chilling him to the bone. He raises his head and his mother is gone too.


	3. Chapter 3

The Byers house has over time come to be a safe-haven for Steve.

Sure, his parents were more often gone than there and left him with the big house, the big pool and the big liquor cabinet. They leave him with all he freedom in the world. He can throw a party every night, he can eat take out whenever he wants, stay up past curfew and have any girl he wants over. Its everything a high school boy could ask for. Just him and his big, empty house.

He likes being in the Byers house with all the kids, all the noise and movement. He likes Joyce’s mothering presence, even if her cooking is awful. She always has a kind word to say to him and she sings and bumps her hip against his when he helps her wash up the plates after a meal. He likes the homey look to the place, well lived in; shoes scattered by the door, the smell of cigarettes and laundry detergent, music playing or a re-run of something on the TV.

He feels safe here. He feels like he’s somewhere that really feels like a home, a place he is wanted and can walk into any time, no matter what shit he’s got going on outside the creaky, wooden boarded walls. It’s a place filled with love and somewhere he can feel like himself.

He’s never realised the effect Billy’s presence has had on the place until he’s there, with everyone without him.

He sits between Dustin and Max on the couch, forcing down a slice of take out pizza that tastes like cardboard. He keeps waiting for Billy to appear, swaggering out of the kitchen with his mouth full of pizza, telling Max to scoot over as he vaults over the back of the couch to squeeze himself in the space between her and Steve. Or, when Steve was drying the plates handed to him by Joyce, he turns to hand them to Billy to put away in the cupboard and stops in his tracks and stares at Johnathan in surprise when he is the one standing there, holding his hands out to take them from him. Or when he goes to flip the tape playing music in the background, he finds himself pausing, waiting for Billy to appear by his side, bickering with Dustin about what music to put on next while Steve tells them to shut the hell up and flips the tape anyway because he likes _The Smiths_ , no matter what Billy has to say about it.

He listen numbly while Nancy and Johnathan tell the rest of the group about the events of the past few nights. She rings off all the ‘symptoms’ Billy has and watches as the faces around him go pale. His eyes slide to Will and the poor kid looks as rough as Steve feels. He and Billy had budded an odd sort of friendship. Will looked at Billy like he was the sun and Billy – of course – had enjoyed the attention. He had caught them more than once laughing and chatting together, Billy admiring his drawings and sketches and Will telling him that he too loved Queen when he had found Billy swaying and singing _‘I’m In Love With My Car’_ under his breath while cleaning his Axe.

If anyone knew what Billy was going through, it was Will.

“So, the circle, symbol thing can keep him trapped?”

Johnathan nods at Hopper’s question, pulling over the sketch of it that they had copied on to the floor in Steve’s hallway.

“Yes, but Steve said he knew what it is, he could be expecting it next time around.”

“So, what do we do now? Does anyone know where he’s gone?” Joyce asks, arms wrapped around herself, face ashen and worried.

“He didn’t come home last night, and he wasn’t in the house all day,” Max says quietly, her body stiffening beside Steve, “I managed to cover for him, but Neil is going to notice it soon. He doesn’t like Billy shirking his…responsibilities.”

Steve supresses a snort at Max’s polite phrasing. Possessed or not, Billy’s Dad is going to beat him senseless for skipping even just one night, never mind a night and a whole day. Steve supresses a shudder at the thought.

“I’ll put out a call around the officers, see if anyone has spotted him or his car.” Hopper says, thumbing at his walkie, “he’s the only one who drives a blue Camaro in town, someone must have spotted it.”

“I could find him.”

The group is quiet after El’s suggestion, everyone casting glances around, most eyes landing on Hopper who’s jaw flexes.

Joyce leans down from where she stands behind the curly haired girl, placing he hands on her shoulders, rubbing them gently, “we won’t ask you to do that, sweetie,” she says kindly, her voice soft, “we’ll see if we can find him first.”

El nods in understanding and Steve can see the small look of relief on her face. He’s never seen El go in to that headspace, he’s heard enough from the kids to know that it isn’t pleasant for her.

“What do we do when we find him? If he was ready to kill Steve, who knows what he would do to all of us.”

Steve bristles at Dustin’s words but Will shifts, eyes on the sigil drawing in the centre of the table, his voice is quiet when he speaks.

“He won’t be able to help it,” he looks up and around at them all, his eyes wide in his face, “it’s not him. It’s the thing controlling him. He could be inside screaming for it to stop and it could have no effect.”

Will’s words chill Steve to the bone and he supresses a shudder. He hates the thought of Billy out there, out of control, trapped within a monster, desperate to escape.

“The longer it was inside me,” Will continues, “the more I started to forget. The more it took over, the less I was myself. If we don’t find him soon, it could take too much and we might not have any Billy left to save.”

Joyce looks ready to climb over the table and gather her youngest son up in her arms but seems to settle when Johnathan places a hand on his shoulder, “don’t worry, Will, you know more than any of us that we can fight this. He’s not gone for good.”

Heads nod and affirmations are murmured around the table and Steve feels his eyes water and throat thicken. Warmth buds in his chest at this family he has found who are willing to do all they can to protect each other. That includes Billy now.

“Okay. So, salt burns him, so does silver and religious icons,” Nancy lists off, picking up her notebook and reading out the list she has compiled.

“Devil Traps can hold him but he can see them coming. There is some stuff about holy water but that is just as effective as the rest; it will hurt Billy more than it will hurt the thing inside him. We need to figure out some way we can get to him and keep him in place until we extract the thing inside him.”

“If I were a demon possessed asshole, where would I go?” Dustin says, leaning over to peer at the maps and notes strewn across the table.

“He likes it cold,” Will says quietly.

“Dude, its Hawkins in winter, everywhere is cold,” say Lucas from his place beside Max, one arm around her shoulders in an attempt at comfort.

“Would it go somewhere Billy feels an attachment to?” Steve asks, his voice hoarse.

All eyes go to him.

Will shifts, “when I had it inside me, it wanted to be safe. It liked my house because it was where I felt safe, so I stayed here most of the time,” he turns to Steve, big, brown eyes looking into his soul.

“Does Billy have a place like that?” Mike asks, eyes sliding to Max.

The red head shrugs, “I couldn’t say.”

Heads turn to Steve.

“I think I know the place.”

 

 

 

V

 

 

 

The low branches of the trees cut at his arms as he runs, thrashing wildly at them. His lungs burn with the cold air and his legs ache from running so hard. He breaks through the trees and stumbles through grass and gravel until he’s skittering to a halt at the edge of the outcrop.

He stares down at the black water all the way below, gasping for breath. The Quarry’s water is calm, the air is quiet. It’s as if Billy is the only living thing left in this place; the birds and insects are silent,  the trees don’t even rustle with the breeze in the night. He bends, hands braced on his knees and blinks angrily at the tears blurring his vision.

He’s hot. He’s so hot. The ground is firm with early winter frost and he can see his breath steaming in the air before him with every ragged breath. The air is cold enough to freeze but sweat drips off him, beads rolling down his face, sticking his half-opened shirt to his back.

**Give in to me.**

He shudders at the voice in his head, horrible and loud, like the sound of metal scraping against stone.

**Give yourself over to me.**

“No – no.”

He clenches his fists in the fabric of his jeans and paces back and forth, shaking his head in an attempt to ride himself of that awful voice. It pierces through his soul until he can’t escape it. He screamed himself hoarse in that quiet place, running for miles in the dark and water until, somehow, he broke free. He came into his body like coming out of a deep sleep, the world suddenly real around him. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and he looks down at them now. Blood seeps out of the scratches in his arms, bruises darkening his skin here and there and he revels in the pain, in feeling _something_.

When he had fought back control, he had been alone, standing in the middle of the woods. He had ran, wild and fast, not sure where he was going, just feeling the fight or flight instinct to be somewhere safe, somewhere _cold_.

The Quarry was a familiar place to him and he felt calmer here. This is their place; he and Steve’s. Billy loved the guy’s big, empty house but Steve said he too often felt the echo of his parents there. Billy would often watch him stare off in silence, brown eyes darting around the empty spaces, sadness clouding his vision. He said it was easier there with Billy, but he didn’t like being so close to that pool, being so close to the dark, empty reminder of the absence of his parents.

So, they started coming up here every now and then. Billy would drive them up, throw the car in to park and watch Steve transform. His shoulders would relax, smiles come easier to his face, his eyes bright and warm when they looked at the blond.

Memories of night after night up here with the guy flowed into Billy’s mind. Of Steve shirtless, draped across the back seats of the Camaro, eyes hooded, cheeks flushed, hair a mess and arms reaching out to pull Billy’s mouth to his. Of Steve laughing as they shared a cigarette, pressed together on the hood of the car, more stars than Billy could ever count peppering the sky as they passed a cigarette back and forth, Steve’s body warm and pressed so close to his own. Steve drunk when they stumbled up here after a party, arms around each other, grinning like fools, Billy twirling Steve under his arm before catching his lanky form. Swaying to the music in their heads, pressed together, arms around each other, Steve smelling of his expensive cologne and cigarettes and cheap beer. Steve’s eyes closed and his skin flushed a lovely pink as Billy pressed into him, Billy’s shirt hanging off his shoulders as he threw his head back against the blanket they threw across the ground, hands clinging to Billy’s skin. Steve moaning his name over and over as they climbed to ecstasy together, looking so goddamn perfect as Billy lost himself in him.

**Pretty boy.**

Billy stiffens, the memories turning sour as that voice returns.

**Do you think he hates you now?**

“The fuck do you mean?”

**Don’t you remember what you did to him?**

All at once, Billy can see Steve before him, pressed up against the wall in his home, Billy’s hand around his throat. He watches in horror as that pretty skin turns red, then purple, veins popping out of his head, eyes wide, mouth gaping open and shut as he struggles to talk. He can feel his pulse hammering beneath his fingers. Can feel the claw of his nails in his skin and the kick of his legs as he desperately scrambles for release. Those brown eyes stare at him in betrayal, wide and terrified as Billy chokes the very life out of him.

“Stop it! That was you – that wasn’t me!”

The vision ends and he stumbles back as he finds himself once more in the dark of the Quarry. His stomach knots and he leans over and retches, thick, black liquid pouring out of him to darken the frosted ground. Billy leans against a tree as he gags and gasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and he can taste blood and bile. He drags air into his tired lungs, his throat raw and sobs wrack his form.

“I - I didn’t do that. I would never hurt him,” he croaks out.

**Is that so?**

Another vision comes and Billy is back in the Byers cabin. Drawings cover every surface, linking together to form a dizzying path of the tunnels, stretching in every direction. His fist burns and he looks down to see his knuckles red and split. His ribs ache and his nose bleeds, blood coating his tongue. He looks up and Steve is stumbling to his feet, broken pieces of the plate Billy smashed across his head falling to the floor. Brown eyes blink at him and his body is moving without his control, fists connecting with that pretty face and Billy tries with all his might to stop it. But he can’t. This has all happened before, he’s powerless and all he can do is watch as his body moves out of his control, rage like fire burning through his veins. Steve falls to the floor and Billy crawls on top of him, grabbing the front of his jean jacket and throws his fists down, one after the other, painting his face bloody.

“Stop! – Stop it!”

The vision ends and he falls to his knees, sweat rolling off him, his skin feeling so hot he could burn with it. He collapses on to the floor and feels the frost melting beneath his heated body, soaking through his clothes. He sobs and lies in a crumpled heap, the feeling of Steve’s skin still beneath his knuckles.

**Do you really think he forgave you for what you did? Do you really think he loves you?**

He chokes on the lump in his throat, his body exhausted and he struggles to fight back.

**How could someone like that love you? You - a monster, just like me.**

“No,” he whimpers, nails digging into the dirt, his muscles screaming in agony as he tries to get up.

**You have done nothing but hurt him. You could have killed him that night. You would have, if Max hadn’t stopped you.**

Billy grits his teeth, an acrid taste on his tongue.

**Everyone saw. Everyone watched you. Do you really think they have forgiven you for nearly killing their friend? None of them like you. Not really. They are all relieved you are gone.**

He had known it would be hard to make amends. He had taken baby steps after that night. When he next saw Steve after their fight, his stomach had twisted when he saw the state of him, like a swarm of bees had attacked his face. Weeks of trying to be nicer, he had stopped provoking Steve all the time. He had lent the guy his notes in English, let him score past him during practice, stayed out of sight and out of mind during parties, told Tommy to shut the hell up when he commented of the fall of ‘King Steve.’ He had apologised to the Sinclair kid, drove Max where she wanted to go without complaint, kept his head down and out of trouble. Then, one day, he had been leaning against the hood of his Camaro, waiting for Max to appear to drive her home and Harrington had showed up instead. He had glared at Billy and the Cali boy had waited for the punches, waited for the payback for what he had done. Steve’s face had healed back to normal by then, if just a little yellow around the edges.

Instead, Harrington had plucked the cigarette out of his mouth, popped it into his own and leaned against the car beside him. Billy had been frozen in place, completely unsure of what the hell he was supposed to do.

“Stop being so goddamn nice to me,” Steve had said, taking a drag of the smoke, “its freaking me out.”

“I’m trying to play the good guy here.”

Steve had just crushed the butt under his book and stood, turning to face Billy again. He stuck his hand out between them and Billy had full on flinched, catching Steve’s grimace.

“Truce?” he had said.

Billy had stared at the offered hand like the guy had just grown an antler out of it, raising his own in jerky, unsure movements before grasping it, the guy’s skin nice and warm.

“Truce.”

Then, Harrington had full on beamed at him and Billy’s breath had caught in his throat.

“There’s a party happening at Tracy Bradford’s house tonight. You going?”

Billy had nodded dumbly.

“Good,” Steve dropped his hand, smiling at him again, “see you there.”

Then he had walked off, leaving Billy to stare after him, at those swaying hips and nice shoulders.

After that, they had been near enough inseparable.

**Do you really think it’s that easy? That they would forgive you just like that?**

Billy pushes himself to his knees, wet and muddy, skin still burning, head reeling, tears staining his cheeks, that voice cutting through his brain like a knife.

**I’ll bet they have been waiting for this. Waiting for you to snap. Waiting for you to be who you really are.**

Steve’s face swims back into his mind. Those eyes when that thing had wrapped his hand around the boy’s throat. The look of complete betrayal, fear, mirroring the look on all those faces that night at the Byers.

**You burn everything you touch.**

Billy presses his hands to his face, squeezed his eyes into his head, shoulders shaking with his sobs. He’s always been a crier. He hates it. He bottles too much up until he explodes and winds up crying until his head is thudding, his eyes red, his throat raw.

**They know who you really are now. They knew all along you wouldn’t change. Steve knows it. Max knows it. Your Father knows it. Your Mother knew it.**

The sight of his mother in that place, battered and bruised, cut open from ear to ear like the last time he had ever saw her. He can still feel the blood on his hands, staining his clothes. He can still feel her trembling body in his arms, her blue eyes wide as they stare up at him, blood flowing out her mouth. He can still feel the rage that had taken over him that night, pulsing through his veins, powering his movements.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he croaks out.

The voice laughs, loud and cruel.


	4. Chapter 4

The low branches of the trees cut at his arms as he runs, thrashing wildly at them. His lungs burn with the cold air and his legs ache from running so hard. He breaks through the trees and stumbles through grass and gravel until he’s skittering to a halt at the edge of the outcrop.

He stares down at the black water all the way below, gasping for breath. The Quarry’s water is calm, the air is quiet. It’s as if Billy is the only living thing left in this place; the birds and insects are silent,  the trees don’t even rustle with the breeze in the night. He bends, hands braced on his knees and blinks angrily at the tears blurring his vision.

He’s hot. He’s so hot. The ground is firm with early winter frost and he can see his breath steaming in the air before him with every ragged breath. The air is cold enough to freeze but sweat drips off him, beads rolling down his face, sticking his half-opened shirt to his back.

**Give in to me.**

He shudders at the voice in his head, horrible and loud, like the sound of metal scraping against stone.

**Give yourself over to me.**

“No – no.”

He clenches his fists in the fabric of his jeans and paces back and forth, shaking his head in an attempt to ride himself of that awful voice. It pierces through his soul until he can’t escape it. He screamed himself hoarse in that quiet place, running for miles in the dark and water until, somehow, he broke free. He came into his body like coming out of a deep sleep, the world suddenly real around him. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and he looks down at them now. Blood seeps out of the scratches in his arms, bruises darkening his skin here and there and he revels in the pain, in feeling _something_.

When he had fought back control, he had been alone, standing in the middle of the woods. He had ran, wild and fast, not sure where he was going, just feeling the fight or flight instinct to be somewhere safe, somewhere _cold_.

The Quarry was a familiar place to him and he felt calmer here. This is their place; he and Steve’s. Billy loved the guy’s big, empty house but Steve said he too often felt the echo of his parents there. Billy would often watch him stare off in silence, brown eyes darting around the empty spaces, sadness clouding his vision. He said it was easier there with Billy, but he didn’t like being so close to that pool, being so close to the dark, empty reminder of the absence of his parents.

So, they started coming up here every now and then. Billy would drive them up, throw the car in to park and watch Steve transform. His shoulders would relax, smiles come easier to his face, his eyes bright and warm when they looked at the blond.

Memories of night after night up here with the guy flowed into Billy’s mind. Of Steve shirtless, draped across the back seats of the Camaro, eyes hooded, cheeks flushed, hair a mess and arms reaching out to pull Billy’s mouth to his. Of Steve laughing as they shared a cigarette, pressed together on the hood of the car, more stars than Billy could ever count peppering the sky as they passed a cigarette back and forth, Steve’s body warm and pressed so close to his own. Steve drunk when they stumbled up here after a party, arms around each other, grinning like fools, Billy twirling Steve under his arm before catching his lanky form. Swaying to the music in their heads, pressed together, arms around each other, Steve smelling of his expensive cologne and cigarettes and cheap beer. Steve’s eyes closed and his skin flushed a lovely pink as Billy pressed into him, Billy’s shirt hanging off his shoulders as he threw his head back against the blanket they threw across the ground, hands clinging to Billy’s skin. Steve moaning his name over and over as they climbed to ecstasy together, looking so goddamn perfect as Billy lost himself in him.

**Pretty boy.**

Billy stiffens, the memories turning sour as that voice returns.

**Do you think he hates you now?**

“The fuck do you mean?”

**Don’t you remember what you did to him?**

All at once, Billy can see Steve before him, pressed up against the wall in his home, Billy’s hand around his throat. He watches in horror as that pretty skin turns red, then purple, veins popping out of his head, eyes wide, mouth gaping open and shut as he struggles to talk. He can feel his pulse hammering beneath his fingers. Can feel the claw of his nails in his skin and the kick of his legs as he desperately scrambles for release. Those brown eyes stare at him in betrayal, wide and terrified as Billy chokes the very life out of him.

“Stop it! That was you – that wasn’t me!”

The vision ends and he stumbles back as he finds himself once more in the dark of the Quarry. His stomach knots and he leans over and retches, thick, black liquid pouring out of him to darken the frosted ground. Billy leans against a tree as he gags and gasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and he can taste blood and bile. He drags air into his tired lungs, his throat raw and sobs wrack his form.

“I - I didn’t do that. I would never hurt him,” he croaks out.

**Is that so?**

Another vision comes and Billy is back in the Byers cabin. Drawings cover every surface, linking together to form a dizzying path of the tunnels, stretching in every direction. His fist burns and he looks down to see his knuckles red and split. His ribs ache and his nose bleeds, blood coating his tongue. He looks up and Steve is stumbling to his feet, broken pieces of the plate Billy smashed across his head falling to the floor. Brown eyes blink at him and his body is moving without his control, fists connecting with that pretty face and Billy tries with all his might to stop it. But he can’t. This has all happened before, he’s powerless and all he can do is watch as his body moves out of his control, rage like fire burning through his veins. Steve falls to the floor and Billy crawls on top of him, grabbing the front of his jean jacket and throws his fists down, one after the other, painting his face bloody.

“Stop! – Stop it!”

The vision ends and he falls to his knees, sweat rolling off him, his skin feeling so hot he could burn with it. He collapses on to the floor and feels the frost melting beneath his heated body, soaking through his clothes. He sobs and lies in a crumpled heap, the feeling of Steve’s skin still beneath his knuckles.

**Do you really think he forgave you for what you did? Do you really think he loves you?**

He chokes on the lump in his throat, his body exhausted and he struggles to fight back.

**How could someone like that love you? You - a monster, just like me.**

“No,” he whimpers, nails digging into the dirt, his muscles screaming in agony as he tries to get up.

**You have done nothing but hurt him. You could have killed him that night. You would have, if Max hadn’t stopped you.**

Billy grits his teeth, an acrid taste on his tongue.

**Everyone saw. Everyone watched you. Do you really think they have forgiven you for nearly killing their friend? None of them like you. Not really. They are all relieved you are gone.**

He had known it would be hard to make amends. He had taken baby steps after that night. When he next saw Steve after their fight, his stomach had twisted when he saw the state of him, like a swarm of bees had attacked his face. Weeks of trying to be nicer, he had stopped provoking Steve all the time. He had lent the guy his notes in English, let him score past him during practice, stayed out of sight and out of mind during parties, told Tommy to shut the hell up when he commented of the fall of ‘King Steve.’ He had apologised to the Sinclair kid, drove Max where she wanted to go without complaint, kept his head down and out of trouble. Then, one day, he had been leaning against the hood of his Camaro, waiting for Max to appear to drive her home and Harrington had showed up instead. He had glared at Billy and the Cali boy had waited for the punches, waited for the payback for what he had done. Steve’s face had healed back to normal by then, if just a little yellow around the edges.

Instead, Harrington had plucked the cigarette out of his mouth, popped it into his own and leaned against the car beside him. Billy had been frozen in place, completely unsure of what the hell he was supposed to do.

“Stop being so goddamn nice to me,” Steve had said, taking a drag of the smoke, “its freaking me out.”

“I’m trying to play the good guy here.”

Steve had just crushed the butt under his book and stood, turning to face Billy again. He stuck his hand out between them and Billy had full on flinched, catching Steve’s grimace.

“Truce?” he had said.

Billy had stared at the offered hand like the guy had just grown an antler out of it, raising his own in jerky, unsure movements before grasping it, the guy’s skin nice and warm.

“Truce.”

Then, Harrington had full on beamed at him and Billy’s breath had caught in his throat.

“There’s a party happening at Tracy Bradford’s house tonight. You going?”

Billy had nodded dumbly.

“Good,” Steve dropped his hand, smiling at him again, “see you there.”

Then he had walked off, leaving Billy to stare after him, at those swaying hips and nice shoulders.

After that, they had been near enough inseparable.

**Do you really think it’s that easy? That they would forgive you just like that?**

Billy pushes himself to his knees, wet and muddy, skin still burning, head reeling, tears staining his cheeks, that voice cutting through his brain like a knife.

**I’ll bet they have been waiting for this. Waiting for you to snap. Waiting for you to be who you really are.**

Steve’s face swims back into his mind. Those eyes when that thing had wrapped his hand around the boy’s throat. The look of complete betrayal, fear, mirroring the look on all those faces that night at the Byers.

**You burn everything you touch.**

Billy presses his hands to his face, squeezed his eyes into his head, shoulders shaking with his sobs. He’s always been a crier. He hates it. He bottles too much up until he explodes and winds up crying until his head is thudding, his eyes red, his throat raw.

**They know who you really are now. They knew all along you wouldn’t change. Steve knows it. Max knows it. Your Father knows it. Your Mother knew it.**

The sight of his mother in that place, battered and bruised, cut open from ear to ear like the last time he had ever saw her. He can still feel the blood on his hands, staining his clothes. He can still feel her trembling body in his arms, her blue eyes wide as they stare up at him, blood flowing out her mouth. He can still feel the rage that had taken over him that night, pulsing through his veins, powering his movements.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he croaks out.

The voice laughs, loud and cruel.

 

 

 

 

V

 

 

 

Steve feels like he’s stepping on someone’s grave.

The Quarry is deadly silent. He bends low at the edge of the trees, grips the handle of his bat in hand and tries to swallow past the lump that seems to have permanently lodged itself in his throat. It makes him sick to think he could use it on Billy, but Mike had suggested they all come armed. Hopper and the rest agreeing solemnly. Steve had protested but Will had put a hand on his arm and gently reminded him that it wasn’t Billy they were fighting; it was the thing controlling him. He would be unpredictable and could hurt them without thinking, it would be stupid to come unarmed. It would just be a precaution should things go wrong.

He steps out of the line of trees and slowly makes his way to the outcrop, eyes darting all around. He shivers and tugs the lapels of his jean jacket around him. This place holds so many memories for him. They dance around behind his eyes, from his childhood adventures up here, swimming in the water in the summer with his friends, to the past few weeks where he and Billy call the place home. It feels like a betrayal to be here for anything other than a happy purpose.

The night is lit by the full moon, beaming huge and imposing in the sky above him, casting silvery lines around the tall trees that stand proud and steady, undisturbed by even a breeze.

A squelch brings his attention to the floor and he grimaces when he sees he’s stepped in some thick, black slime, a huge puddle of it on the ground. He stumbles to the side, drags the sole of his shoe against the grass and sees patches of the grass muddy and wet, surrounded by the hard frost, as if something has melted big forms into the ground.

He itches for a cigarette, needing something to clear his head and ground him. He looks around again and stops dead when he sees the crumbled form of someone lying on the ground near the outcrop’s edge. He shuffles closer slowly and blonde hair shines silver in the moonlight. He drops his bat.

“Oh my God, Billy.”

He rushes forwards, kneeling by his boyfriend’s side. His hands pull him to roll over until he’s lying on his back and his heart hammers in his chest when he finds him still. Some black liquid stains his chin, trickling out of his mouth and for a moment Steve thinks it’s those veins again. He reaches to press a hand against his cheek and jerks back when he finds his skin hot, almost burning to the touch. Droplets of sweat slide over his skin, ashen and grey in the dull light.

“Billy?” he calls quietly, tapping his hand against his cheek, shaking his body gently, “Billy, please, wake up.”

All he can hear is his heart hammering in his chest. He holds a hand over Billy’s mouth and nearly falls out of his skin when he can’t feel any breaths against his skin. He wonders if he should try mouth to mouth. He doesn’t even know CPR. Should he do the chest pressing thing? He wonders if he should call Hopper but then Billy’s body jerks and he coughs, rolling to his side.

Steve fusses and rubs his back, lets him cough and regain his breathing, hands touching every inch of the guy he can get. Billy drags in a ragged breath and wheezes, rolling back over, blue eyes finding Steve and he blinks.

“Steve?”

“Jesus, Billy? Is that you?”

Billy rolls his eyes, “yeah, Princess,” he grunts as he sits up, squeezing his eyes shut, “its me.”

“Oh, thank fuck.”

Billy nods and raises a hand and waves it at Steve in a ‘yeah, yeah, shut up’ motion before scrubbing a hand over his face.

“Shit, I feel rough,” he complains, voice deep and hoarse.

“Billy, what happened?”

Billy glances at him, tugs out his cigarettes and lights one before Steve can protest too much. He bats his hand away when he tries to pull it out of his mouth and Steve gives up when he tries to stand and his arm gives out beneath him. The blond sits where he is instead, the flame of his zippo lighting up his face, blowing out a steady stream of smoke and closing his eyes in a sigh.

“Jesus, I drank too much, stop your fussing, Mother Hen.”

Something curls in Steve’s gut, the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge. He fights to keep his face composed, not wanting to give Billy – or whoever he’s talking to any hint that he’s suspicious.

“How did you find me?” Billy asks, blue eyes cutting to him as he sucks on his cigarette.

Steve notes that Billy hasn’t offered him one. It sounds silly, but Billy has gotten into the habit of always offering him a cigarette. To the point where he was running low and got cranky when he smoked less that he usually did in a day and only when Steve snapped at him to stop being so moody did he begrudgingly explain that he was keeping the last two to smoke with Steve when he got to his house after school for their annual ‘date night.’ Steve had grinned all night long and teased him for being a romantic sap.

“Just a guess, I used to find you up here all the time,” he explains hurriedly when he’s snapped out of his thoughts to find Billy staring at him, “got lucky, I guess.”

Billy seems to accept that, pulling on his smoke again.

“What have you been doing?” Steve asks, eyes roaming over the golden skin that looks ashen, cuts and bruises marring him.

Billy flinches, tugs his wet shirt over his body and buttons it to his collarbone. Steve watches in bewilderment.

“What do you think? Got home to my old man last night and he threw me about for leaving Max to get home herself. Usual shit.”

Steve’s blood runs cold at the lie.

“Billy,” he says slowly, watching every shift in the guy, “do you remember last night?”

Billy blows out the smoke and stubs the cigarette out on the wet ground, “what do you mean?”

Steve takes a breath, not sure how to go about this. He’s almost completely sure this isn’t his Billy sitting in front of him. If he’s right, he doesn’t know what game this Demon is playing with him. Does it think it can brush off what happened the night before and get Steve to trust him?

“You came to mine -”

“– yeah.”

“– And we had pizza and watched a film -”

“– yeah, and you fell asleep.”

“And – wait, what?”

Billy looks at him, blue eyes boring right into his soul, leaning close, “you fell asleep, during the film.”

Steve holds his breath.

Billy rolls his eyes, “Christ, Stevie, we didn’t even bang and you were out for the count. Can’t even blame me for knackering you out,” he says, grinning, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s plastered thin and fake across his face and Steve can see right through it.

“You fell asleep, I took you upstairs to your bed and went home. Though, you looked like you weren’t loving whatever you were dreaming about. Had a nightmare or something?”

Those blue eyes watch him and Steve’s mind scrambles to figure out what to do here.

“I, uh, yeah – yeah, I guess I did.”

Steve fights the shudder that runs through his body. This Demon is playing a game with him, it’s trying to play with him, trick him in to believing everything he saw last night was some dream. He’s seen too much shit to know it wasn’t. His neck is still red beneath his jumper, he’s had Nancy and Johnathan there to confirm everything he saw. The whole gang is clued in – the Demon clearly doesn’t know that.

“Let’s get you up,” he says instead, letting Billy wrap a heavy arm around his shoulders and pulls the guy to his feet. Billy tosses away his cigarette butt and wipes his arm quickly over his mouth, taking away the black stain and Steve pretends not to notice.

“Want to go back to yours, baby?” he says, winking at Steve and wrapping a hot arm around his waist.

Steve forces himself not to shy away from the touch, forces one foot in front of the other and leads Billy back to the line of trees. He looks around him, trying to search subtly for the gleam of moonlight on iron nails and tries not to panic when he can’t see his bat anywhere.

Billy takes his arm away and Steve panics for a moment before a hand laces into his, Billy tugging him along behind him, fingers chasing the chill from Steve’s skin.

“Come on, Princess, I could murder a cheeseburger right now.”

Steve lets him be pulled along, eyes darting from Billy’s back to the ground, to the trees and back again. When Billy stops, he nearly thuds right into him.

“Billy?”

He stares at the back of the guy’s head, golden curls wet and dirty. He watches the head bend down and his heart leaps into his throat when he sees what has caught his attention. Billy drops his hand.

He bends down, plucks up the bat from the ground and turns, twirling it around in his grasp. Shakes it like he’s trying out the weight of it.

“What do we have here?”

Steve clamps his mouth shut.

Billy looks at him, brows raised, blue eyes dark. Steve feels like a kid being told off by a parent.

“You were going to use that? On me?”

Billy’s voice is low, dangerous and it sends shivers all over Steve’s body, every single hair standing on end.

“N-No,” he stammers, panicking, not sure whether to lie or tell the truth, “it was just a precaution.”

“A precaution. Against me,” Billy says slowly, like Steve’s dumb and Billy’s figured out the master plan. He laughs, a dark, bitter laugh, throwing his head back and turning in a circle before looking back to Steve.

“Just say it. You thought I was going to hurt you, didn’t you?”

“No, no, Billy I -”

“– so that’s what you really think, huh? Your Billy is unhinged, dangerous, someone you need to protect yourself from.”

“Billy -”

**“Didn’t I tell you so?”**

Steve freezes, a voice that isn’t Billy’s coming out of his mouth. A voice that chills the very blood in Steve’s body, cuts through his brain like a knife; horrible and rasped.

Blue eyes turn black in a blink and Billy stands taller, shoulders squares, the bat held in a stronger grip. The Demon smirks at Steve and he start backing away.

**“I told him this would happen. He didn’t listen to me. I told him you never truly forgave him.”**

“What?”

**“You didn’t, did you? He beat you bloody, could have killed you. How could you forgive and forget that?”**

The Demon steps forward, booted foot crunching in the frost, melting in each step.

“I did forgive him – I _have_.”

**“Oh, but you didn’t. Here you are, terrified of the person you say you love. You expect him to hurt you, don’t you? You know he’s really a monster inside.”**

“That’s not true.”

**“Liar.”**

“You were the one that hurt me. It was you – not Billy!”

The Demon nods, **“I may have had a hand in last night. Silly of me to think I would get away with that one. But what about that night three months ago?”**

Steve stumbles as he back away, refusing to tear his eyes away from Billy. He doesn’t like this game the thing inside him is playing. Its messing with his head, messing with Billy’s head. Steve had forgiven him. Billy had made amends, been a better person ever since. He saw it every time he was with him, felt it in every touch, every kiss. Every time he sat surrounded by the kids and was relaxed and smiling and happy. He forgave him the first moment he had watched his father push his head against the wall of his bedroom and kicked his stomach for bringing Max home late. Something that was completely Steve’s fault, he had just wanted to stay talking to Billy longer, actually starting to like the guy and fascinated with the fall of his curls across his face. The first moment he had peeked through to the world that Billy lived in, he had understood and forgave him for all the shit he had done before.

**“You can’t blame me for that one. That was all Billy. Each hit, each word, all of that happened long before I came along.”**

The Demon starts swinging the back lazily back and forth in front of him, each step another swing, backing Steve away from the outcrop, closer to the trees. He stumbles and feels the bark of a trunk press against his back. The Demon comes close, grinning with a too familiar face, right in Steve’s space.

He swings the bat and Steve flinches as it lodges itself in the tree with a sharp thud, right by where his head was. Splinters flying down to the ground. He feels the force of it rattle through him. He scrambles to run but a hand closes around his throat once more.

 **“Such a pretty face,”** the Demon coos, letting go of the bat’s handle in favour of carding its fingers through Steve’s hair, tugging sharply, making Steve yelp out in pain.

**“Such a waste.”**

Black veins seep out from those eyes again, the hand tightens and Steve claws at its skin.

**“This time, Billy’s too far away to stop me.”**

The veins thread across the hand again and Steve grits his teeth, hand around the walkie in his pocket. He presses on the call out button and the loud screech of radio feedback makes the Demon wince. It releases its hold on Steve who holds the radio out in front of him like a gun, the screech loud enough to hurt his own ears. He coughs and gasps as the thing falls to one knee and he raises the walkie to his mouth, holds down the button and takes a breath.

 “E-Eggos!” he manages to shout, voice thin.

The Demon looks up, confused for only a moment before the place is lit up and the screech of tires on wet ground fills the air.

He turns while the cars zip past him, hears tires screeching to a halt in the clearing, car doors slamming all around and voices calling out everywhere. He wraps his hands around the handle of the bat and gives it a few sharp tugs until it is released from the tree. He swings it experimentally as he turns, seeing the many familiar bodies piling out of the cars to surround Billy who has backed up to the outcrop edge.

“I told you that was a stupid code name,” Dustin mutters, eyeing Billy with a frown.

“Shut up, it was El who picked it,” Mike grumbles.

Steve joins the semi-circle, Nancy on one side, Dustin on the other. He plants his feet, twisting his foot into the ground and the Demon watches, laughs.

**“Well, isn’t this sweet. The pity parade is here, armed and ready to take out the monster, right?”**

Max steps forward out of the line, Lucas shifting to grab on to the back of her jacket, “Billy, if you can hear me, please fight it.”

He cocks his head at her, **“good to see you Maxine. Come to finally get rid of me?”**

“Billy” she says, ignoring the Demon’s words, “fight it. I’ll never forgive you if you let it take you. You’re _not_ a monster.”

The Demon shudders for a moment, eyes flickering and hope buds in Steve’s chest only to be replaced with a cold wash of fear when those eyes remain black.   


**“Sorry to bust your bubble, red. The fairy tales are true. Bad Boy Billy will kill you all.”**

Max takes a threatening step forwards but Lucas tugs her back, pulling her back in line with everyone else.

“Let Billy Hargrove go,” Hopper calls out, frowning over at the Demon. Its black eyes cut to him and it grins.

 **“Please, you want to play the big bad cop**?” The Demon sneers, shaking blond hair out of his face.

“You leave his body, go back to where you came from, or it will get ugly for you,” Hopper say, voice steady and firm, thumbing at the safety lock of his gun.

Steve tightens his grip on his bat, he can hear the blood pulsing in his ears. He wills the Demon to just obey, wants nothing more than it to do as told. He doesn’t think he can watch any more harm come to Billy.

 **“You think you are a match for me?”** it says, **“You’re only going to hurt _him._ ”**

Black eyes slide to Will who is stood between Johnathan and Joyce, **“you break Billy, I can just find another ride.”**

Joyce puts her hand on Will’s shoulder and the Demon’s grin widens.

“You won’t be taking anyone,” Hopper warns, “go back through the gate and stay there.”

 **“Please, you lot with your little toys don’t scare me,”** it says, gesturing to Lucas’ sling-shot.

“Maybe not, but we have her,” Hopper says, nodding his head to El who stands beside him, glaring across the plane at the Demon.

It throws its head back and laughs, **“ah, yes, the magic girl. Tell me, Hop, you think that runt can replace your daughter?”**

Hopper’s jaw tightens, the only sign he is affected by the thing’s words. El’s stance shifts slightly and Steve wants to scream and punch the thing that is hurting so many of the people he loves.

“Don’t listen to it,” Johnathan calls out, tightening his hold on the crowbar he wields.

“It’s just trying to get to us,” Joyce adds, bumping her shoulder against Hopper’s gently, eyes full of worry when she looks up at him.

Hopper scoffs, “it’ll have to try harder than that.”

Billy’s grin falls, rage taking over his features and he straightens.

**“Try harder? I haven’t even begun.”**

The black veins appear again and the wind whips up around them. Billy shudders and his arms start to rise slowly. Steve shields his face in his arm as the winds turn cold, clawing like ice at his skin. The Demon rises slowly out of the air, the veins threading their way down his chest, beneath his clothes, down his arms. The wind thunders in Steve’s ears and he can faintly hear voices calling out to him, but he can’t make out a word they are saying. He stumbled and falls to one knee, digging his bat into the ground and a flash of red appears in his vision.

Max grabs his forearm, hair whipping around her head, Will clinging to her side, “he won’t be able to hear our voices!”

Steve nods, gritting his teeth and wraps his arms around the two kids. He looks up and sees El standing with Hopper close behind, hand outstretched to Billy, blood running out of her nose. The wind dies down and the Demon groans loudly, doubling over as El flexes her fingers.

Steve stumbles forward, standing by her, watching Billy contort and shout. Its eyes dart to El and it moves to charge forwards but she pushes her hand against it, an invisible force seeming to halt it where it stands. She pushes again and the wind dies down, its arms by its sides seemingly unable to move.

“Now!” EL shouts out and Nancy runs forwards, flipping open the pages of Johnathan’s demon book to the place she’s marked.

“I hope this works,” she says, finding her mark and then looks up at Billy.

“Regna terrae, cantata Deo, psallite Cernunnos, regna terrae, cantata Dea psallite Aradia.”

A horrific scream rips itself out of Billy’s mouth and he grunts and twists, fighting against El’s hold, head twisting this way and that, curls flying around, sticking to his sweaty face.

“Regna terrae, cantata Dea psallite Aradia. Caeli Deus, Deus terrae, Humilliter majestati gloriae tuae supplicamus.”

“I think it’s working!”

Steve tears his gaze away from Billy’s writhing form when Will tugs on his sleeve, “call out to him,” he says, pushing him and Max towards Billy’s writhing form, “he needs to hear your voices, remind him who he is – who _you_ are!”

Steve nods and grips Max’s hand in his, moving closer to where Billy is on his knees. He is immobile from the neck down, arms bound at his sides by El’s force, head hanging, veins gone from his skin but his eyes still burn black.

“Billy?” Steve begins, “you in there?”

Muddied curls hang across his face, hiding him from view but he doesn’t react any other way that the slight tilt of his head, Steve takes that is as good a sign as any.

“Billy, it’s your Steve. I need you to fight this thing. I need you to come back to me.”

He tries not to feel all the eyes on him, the night silent all around them, Billy’s ragged breaths, El’s small whimpers, Max’s heavy breathing, Nancy speaking the Latin passage behind him, he listens only to them.

“Ut ab omni infernalium spirituum potestate, Laquei, an deception nequitia.”

**“Let me go.”**

“Not chance, big guy.”

He remembers how, when Will had been possessed, he had been able to communicate to them, even while the thing inside him had its strongest hold. Johnathan had told him that telling Will stories he would remember, stories that were meaningful memories to him helped jog the deepest recesses of him mind where Will had been trapped.

“Do you remember the first time we kissed?”

He feels his cheeks redden but pushes aside his nerves. The whole gang knows about he and Billy, but its an unspoken thing, stolen glances and gentle touches when in company, they only were truly together behind closed doors when it was just the two of them. He knew the group didn’t care, but lingering sneers and comments made by his parents, teachers, people in town had haunted Steve from a young age and made it hard for him to be so open about this. Billy was just as bad. If any word got back to his father, he would rather die.

“It was up here. Do you remember it?”

Max gives his hand a reassuring squeeze and Steve swallows past the lump in his throat, hearing the waver in his own voice.

“We were drunk. It was after a party at some girl’s house. We stumbled up here for a smoke and ended up dancing together.”

Billy’s head lifts slightly, blood trickling down his chin.

“You were much better at it than me, I kept standing on your feet and stumbling. You just laughed and told me I was no Baby, and I called you a right Patrick Swayze. Then you dared me to try the lift with you. I was drunk enough to think it was a good idea.”

Steve takes another step closer, a breathy laugh escaping him as he remembered the outcome of their brilliant idea.

“You made me run at you and jump and you actually managed to lift me, I was impressed,” he says, laughing again, “then you got your foot caught on something and stumbled and I fell on top of you like a sack of potatoes.”

Black eyes find Steve and he shivers under the scrutiny, “we lay tangled up in each other and you just looked so pretty there, flushed from drink and grinning like you were really happy. I wanted to kiss you so badly. So, I did.”

Billy’s eyes are wide on Steve, flickering from black to blue and black again.

“Do you remember the day I moved in?” Max says, stepping up to Steve’s side, holding his hand like a lifeline, “I was so shy and scared of Neil. He always tried too hard to be nice to me. I knew it was all fake just to impress my Mom. The day we moved in, Neil got mad at you for something and it was the first time we had seen him hit you.”

Steve stared down at Max as she spoke, watching her body tremble, “I helped you clean up your blood and you told me it happened all the time. That I had to smarten up if I didn’t want it happening to me. Then, you took me surfing.”

Billy stared at her motionless, eyes wide and blue, sparkling with tears.

“We surfed all day long and then you bought us ice cream and I let you use my skateboard. You taught me some tricks. I remember thinking that life wasn’t so bad, if I had you as a brother.”

Billy whimpers, head ducking down and his shoulders wrack as he cries. Steve’s heart pulls in his chest and he takes a step forward. The place is so quiet, Nancy finished her incantation.

Silence reigns once more and Steve lets go of Max’s hand when EL releases her hold on him, the Cali boy stumbling forwards. Steve catches him, blowing out a sigh of relief at just touching him again.

“Billy?” he says softly, cupping a hand against his cheek to lift his face to his. His hair falls across it, his eyes are closed, and he breathes low, looking like each movement pains him. Steve rubs his thumb over the ashen skin, “Billy,” he calls again.

Billy’s eyes open. The darkest blue in the night, tears swimming in them. He grasps Steve’s face in hand, forcing him to look at him, clutching desperately.

“Steve,” he gasps out, voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper, “kill me.”

He jerks out of Steve’s grasp and stumbles back. Steve can only scream as he watches him fall back, disappearing over the cliff’s edge.


	5. Chapter 5

Billy opens his eyes and sees nothing but darkness.

He can feel the water beneath him, licking lazily at his sides, soaking his clothes, chilling him right to the bone. He grunts as he moves, pain flaring all over his body.

He can’t remember anything. Can’t remember getting here. The last thing he can bring to mind is Steve.

He _misses_ him. Misses him like he needs to breathe. He hates everything that is happening to him. Wants it to wash away. He would give anything to be with him, wrapped up in his body, lying in his big bed in his big house. He misses his smell; all clean sheets and his stupid hair spray, expensive cologne and _Steve_.

_Do you remember the first time we kissed?_

Billy scoffs to himself.

Of course he remembers. That night is burned into his brain. The way Steve looked, messy and drunk. Cheeks flushed, eyes shining, hair a mess, grinning at him like he was the only person in the world.

_You made me run at you and jump and you actually managed to lift me, I was impressed._

He can still feel his body beneath his fingers. Can see the look of complete trust he gave just before he ran at him, hunched low and smiling. He can feel the weight of him as he lifted him high, planting his feet and holding his lanky form up easily. He remembers the laugh that had escaped the boy, his chin ducking down to look at Billy with pure joy, surprise, _real_. His hands had been gripping Billy’s shoulders and his legs had kicked and hung pathetically but Billy had used every ounce he had in him to hold him up and spin him around, revelling in the happy noises that had escaped the brunet.

Billy had suddenly dared. Wanted to feel that body against this own, feel those bones pressed into him. He had pretended to slip, letting his legs fold beneath him and wanted to laugh at how Steve had flailed and collapsed on to him.

_We lay tangled up in each other and you just looked so pretty there, flushed from drink and grinning like you were really happy. I wanted to kiss you so badly. So, I did._

He had wanted that too. He had been too scared to dare, was content to just feel that warm body pressing him into the ground, heavy limbs holding him down, arms and legs tangled with his own. He had lay, looking up at Steve laughing, looking so goddamn beautiful in the moonlight. He had stared at those pretty, pink lips stretched in a smile and watched them slowly close. Steve had looked down at him with hooded eyes and flushed cheeks. His hand had slowly moved to cup his cheeks, thumb rubbing softly against his skin and leaned down.

Billy hadn’t dared move, hadn’t dared breathe. Those lips had pressed softly against his own and his entire world had ignited. The kiss was soft and shy, wet and wonderful. Steve had pulled away slowly, carefully. He had looked down at Billy like a deer in headlights, waiting to run at the slightest disturbance.

Billy had looked up at him, watched his pupils blow wide and his breathing deepen. He had raised a hand to lace in soft, brown locks, and slowly pulled that mouth back to his.

The second kiss had been complete bliss.

Steve tasted like cheap beer and cherries. His lips impossibly soft, his moans like music to Billy’s ears. He had kissed him until his lungs burned and reluctantly pulled away to drag air into them.

Steve had been so goddamn pretty it tore at his heart. He had smiled, caressed his hair and kissed him once more. A gentle, barely there kiss that had left him craving more and more.

That night was the best night of Billy’s life. Could he hell forget it.

He pushes himself up on to his knees and grunts when pain flares across his torso. He forces himself to his feet, stumbles and splashes water until he can stand, knees wobbling, head reeling.

Steve’s face swims to mind, eyes wide and terrified, he can feel his hands on his face, thumb caressing his cheeks gently. Steve is always so gentle with him. Holds him like he is something precious. It makes Billy’s chest ache and his heart burn for more. He loves how Steve handles him. He knows, always knows when to push and pull. He knows how to love Billy, love him like he has only imagined and he could cry with how much he just wants all of this shit to fade away. The whole world could burn to dust and he couldn’t care less, as long as he had Steve there to hold.

Max.

He always feels riddled with guilt when he thinks about her. He wants to be a good brother to her. He had tried to be, in the beginning. That day he had took her surfing he had felt sorry for her, felt sorry for himself. Here they were, two complete strangers being forced to live together and be brother and sister, a bond that was pressured on them.

She had been a quiet, timid little thing when they first met. She had been packed up and carted to a new place and a new life, all against her will. She had told Billy how heart broken her father was to see her go and how she missed him every day with her whole heart.

He understood, he missed his mother so much he could hardly breathe.

He liked Max. He thought he could get on with her. He thought they could make it work.

But Neil, goddamn fucking Neil had to make it so obvious his favouritism of her. He pushed Billy day in and day out, reminding him that he was worthless. He told him he would be nothing more than a drop out and he should dedicate his time to making sure Max got where she wanted to go, because she was going to go far.

Neil pushed him away day after day and Billy had to watch from the side-lines while Max was doted on. Neil would throw him a dirty look and shove him aside, hiss in his face that respect and responsibility meant that he had to be her glorified chauffeur or his father would beat him bloody.

It was hard, given the circumstances, not to resent Max for it.

She never asked for much. All she wanted was to see her friends and go to the arcade every now and then. But, she was a teenager. A kid who stayed out past curfew, disappeared into the woods to play and if it were anyone else it wouldn’t matter at all. She would just live like any other kid. Instead, Neil made it Billy’s problem. If she was even five minutes past curfew, Billy took the beating for it. If her grades dropped, it was Billy’s fault for not tutoring her or staying behind to wait for her after her study classes. If she scraped her knee while skateboarding, Neil would reprimand Billy for not being her wheels.

It was a hard life to live. Hard to be friends with the reason he limped into school, cradling his ribs and laughing away his busted lip or purple eye. Every time she tried to be kind to him it tore at his heart and all he could do was scream at her kindness.

It was easier to be hated than loved.

Steve made it easier. He gave Billy a reason to keep going on. He made him feel like he had a purpose other than his father’s punchbag. Steve looked at him like he was the sun and Billy was addicted to the feeling. Steve made him batter, made him nicer, brought him in to a place he could call home and people he could call family.

But he had fucked all that up now.

The Demon was right; how could they love him? How could they look at him and see anything other than an asshole that made their lives miserable? If he had made up for his previous mistakes in the past few months, he had blown it all to dust now. He hated the way they looked at him; scared, unpredictable, like he was some beast they were just waiting to put down.

_Steve, Kill me_

Billy presses his fists against his eyes when the tears blur his vision.

He is so sick of crying. So sick of feeling so helpless and lost. So tired of the guilt he carries around like a ball on a chain. He just wants it to end. He can’t see any way out of this place. He doesn’t want to watch this thing take control and kill those he loves most. He would rather die. It would be better if he did. But he couldn’t do it alone.

_“What the hell are you doing here, son?”_

He freezes at that voice.

_“Where is Maxine? Why isn’t she with you?”_

He pushes himself to his feet slowly, turning around to look for him in the dark.

_“What the hell is wrong with you? Are you drunk or something?”_

He sees his father standing there in the dark, proud and strong and _angry_ in the water. He glares at Billy, eyes not fully seeing him, seeing the Billy the Demon wears. The Billy in this quiet place is merely a spectator.

 _“You better get going and find her,”_ his father growls, leaning close to speak lowly. Billy can smell the whiskey on his breath and twist inside that his father is out getting drunk and expecting Billy to drop everything to look after Max. As usual.

**“You pathetic, cowardly little man.”**

Billy’s heart leaps to his throat. Oh God, please don’t.

He stands before his father, reaches out and isn’t surprised when his fingers only brush the air before his chest.

“Please,” he whimpers, “don’t.”

**“It’s about time someone put you in your place.”**

“No.”

 _“Who the hell do you think you are talking to?”_ his father hisses, leaning close, eyes alive with rage, _“who the fuck do you think you are?”_

Billy has no energy to scream anymore. He can’t fight. He can only watch helplessly as this Demon wreaks more havoc on his life. If he ever regains control again. If he ever finds his way out of this place. His father will kill him for sure. He tries to find the will to care.

_“You don’t speak to me like that, do you hear me? I’’ll kill you if you ever dare to disrespect me again, you disgusting faggot.”_

Billy growls and thrusts his arm out, hand wrapping around his father’s throat.

Suddenly, he’s out of that place. He’s standing in the cold Hawkins air. He can hear the music from the bar, the voices within. He can hear the chatter of the couple smoking nearby, cars driving past. He can feel the burning of his skin, the fall of light rain on his face.

 He can feel his father’s pulse hammering beneath his fingers, the press of his palm into his skin.

He can feel the power coursing through him. The supernatural strength that channels through his entire being, makes his fingers flex, watches his father’s face turn red. He can feel his Adam’s apple pulse beneath his palm as he swallows past the closing of his airways. He can feel how he chokes the very breath from him.

His father splutters, looks at him with wild eyes, “have you lost your mind, boy?”

Billy lets out a breathy laugh, “no. No, for the first time in a long time, I’m thinking clearer than ever.”

Neil’s hands scrabble for purchase at his throat, trying to pry the hand away from him but Billy is strong. So _strong_.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” the blond says, enjoying how his father’s eyes pop wide, how he looks scared for the first time.

“You made my life a living hell,” he tells him, squeezing tighter, “You took everything from me.”

A woman screams nearby and he’s vaguely aware of people shouting.

He looks into those terrified, wide eyes, feels his own eyes flick to black, feels the beast become one with him.

“You killed my Mom. Now I’m going to kill you.”

Red and blue lights up the place but he doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch. He can hear car doors slam, sees the way his father’s eyes dart behind him, face turning pleading, _pitiful._

“Y-you did it,” his fatter chokes out, fighting to be heard, “ _you_ killed her.”

Billy girts his teeth until it hurts, “I’ll make you suffer, you bastard,” he says, squeezing tighter, wants to feel his father’s throat collapse under his strength, wants to watch the light fade from his eyes, see him crumple to the ground like his mother had.

“Billy! Let him go!”

He ignores the familiar voice, feels too far gone, too drunk on the sheer power coursing through him. He squeezes harden and his father’s feet lift off the ground.

Pain flares in his Back and he shudders, feels a force rip through him. His human body weakens, his hand falls from his father’s throat and he collapses to the floor with a shout. He writhes and rolls on the wet ground, feeling every cell in his body on fire. The repetitive click of something behind him.

His vision swoops and the Demon retreats, leaves him cold and weak on the wet ground. Faces swim above him and rain stings in his eyes. He hears his father couching and shouting and then everything goes black.

 

 

 

V

 

 

 

Steve shivers under the blanket draped over his shoulders, blinks his eyes a few times as he wakes from the deepest sleep he’s had in a long time.

The springs in the mattress creak and groan as he sits up, looks around in the dark. He scrubs a hand over his face and feels weary to his bones.

He _misses_ Billy.

He had dreamed of him, of ocean blue eyes and golden curls shining in the sun, pearly white teeth flashing at him in a beautiful smile. The taste of his skin beneath his mouth, warm from the sun, salty from the sea and sweet from Billy. The sound of his voice, soft and rumbling against his ear as he lay his head across his chest. The feeling of his arms around him, holding him strong and steady, like he would never let go.

The sight of him falling from the cliff had been the most horrible moment of his life so far. Nothing compared to it. He would face an army of demo dogs alone with only his bat if it meant he would never have to experience that again.

He had scrambled forwards, arms out to grab hold of the boy and wrench him back up to safety, but he had been too far away, fell too fast. Arms had come around Steve, yanked him back almost painfully to sprawl on the dirty ground. Voices yelling at him, hands clutching him like a death grip, but he had seen nothing, known nothing but the gaping edge of that cliff.

They had all climbed down the road to the water, searched in the shallows soaked to the chest, the strong lights from Hopper’s jeep lighting up the place. But Billy had been nowhere to be found.

Steve had screamed himself hoarse, tears soaking his face, hands dirty and bloodied from clawing his way through trees and undergrowth, desperately searching for him.

Eventually, they had to give up. They had to accept that somehow, Billy had survived and was long gone.

The drive to Hopper’s cabin had been long and quiet, Steve squashed between Dustin and Max. he had clung to the red head, felt her tremble and weep in her arms and had felt so completely and utterly lost.

He pushes the blanket off and forces himself to his feet. He feels around in the dark for the handle and blinks as the warm light pours through the door as he opens it. The boards creak under his feet as he walks along to where he can hear voices. He finds them all in the living room, every head turning to him, falling silent.

“Hey, Steve,” Dustin calls gently, scoots over on the old couch to let him sit down beside him. He rubs a hand on his shoulder.

“You okay?” Nancy asks from where she’s leaning against Johnathan, wrapped in her own blanket, looking tired.

They all look tired, he thinks as he nods to her. Looking around, they all look like they have fought a war and lost. The grief of losing a family member is strong within the gang. Everyone feels Steve’s pain, feels the heart break of losing Billy. He loves them all for loving Billy and is grateful to not feel alone in this.

“What do we do now?” Max asks, her voice quiet. She sits with Lucas on the loveseat, his arms around her, her face pale and her eyes pink and puffy from crying.

Steve doesn’t have anything. He has no idea what to do now.

 

“We didn’t go deep enough.”

They all look to Will at his quiet voice. He’s cradled in his mother’s arms, looking so much younger than he is. His big, brown eyes look around at them all, landing on Steve.

“When I was under, it was all of you that brought me back. You all reminded me what I was fighting for.”

He turns to Mike who sits by his side, “you were my first friend and you’ve been with me through everything. You told me the story of how we first met and it made me want to fight to be with you again.”

He turns to Johnathan, “Johnny, you protected me all my life. When our Dad left you were there to wipe away my tears and play your records to help me forget it all and keep me in a place that was happy. You helped me through all of that pain and you’ve been the best brother anyone could ever ask for.”

Finally, he turns to Joyce, “Mom,” he says, voice catching in his throat, “you never gave up one me. Not when I was gone, not when everything around you was falling apart. You always were there, pulling me out of the dark, ready to wrap me up in your arms and love me more than anyone else.”

Joyce’s face crumbles and she presses a kiss to his hair. Will looks at them all, “all of you were my whole reason to fight. You all reminded me of the hardest days I ever had and how you were all there with me, holding my hand and pulling me through. You all made me fight to have more days with you all.”

He looks at Steve, “Billy needs that. He needs someone to pull him from the dark. His place is deeper and more horrible than mine. He needs to know that it isn’t his fault. That he has a family now. He has us, we love him and we’re not going to leave him there. He needs to know that.”

A new surge of motivation flows over the group and Steve feels a small bud of hope bloom in his chest.

The cabin door opens and Hopper comes in, breathing hard.

“I found him.”

Half of the room surges to their feet.

“Where? How?” Max asks.

“He was in town, I passed him while on patrol. He was trying to kill his dad.”

Steve can feel the silence in the room like a tidal wave.

“Where is he now?” he asks.

“In holding. I had an officer with me, I couldn’t brush it off and bring him here. But, he’s safe, I…I tased him and he passed out.”

“Oh my God,” Dustin gasps.

Hopper turns to Steve, “he was out of control, I had to do something, if he killed Neil right there, I wouldn’t be ale to save him, He’d be sent to prison. I had to stop him somehow.”

“It’s okay,” Steve reassures him, “this is good, we can keep him in one place now and really talk to him.”

Heads nod all around.

“He’s in solitary now. He stayed under for a long time and I managed to get in to the cell and I drew that symbol thing you guys said worked before. It looks like it’s keeping him in. For now.”

Steve could cry, the hope blooming into a warm feeling that spreads all through him.

“Hop,” Joyce gasps, arms around Will and eyes shining as she smiles at the chief, “that’s amazing.”

The group breaks out in murmurs, smiles. This is perfect, if Billy can be kept where he is they can all get to him with no danger of him escaping this time. This could really work. They could get him back.

Hopper isn’t smiling.

“There’s more,” he says, glancing between Max and Steve.

“What is it?” Nancy asks gently.

Hopper blows out a sigh, leaning heavily on El who has gone to his side, wrapping her arms around his waist, “when he was threatening his Dad, he said some stuff. I know it could be the Demon talking but, it seemed really like Billy. His voice s _ounded_ like Billy.”

“What did he say?”

Hopper blows out a sigh and grimaces, “he said Neil killed his Mom.”

Steve feels the blood run cold in his veins.

“But Neil, he said that it was Billy who did it.”

The entire group is silent.

“I know, it could just be the thing inside him and I’ll be dead before I believe anything Neil Hargrove has to say. But -”

He looks reluctantly to Steve, “you said that thing told you about it. That Billy did something.”

_Has he told you about his mother? She’s the one that gave him that necklace. Monica. Has he told you how she died? What he did?_

Steve shakes his head, “no. No. He would never.”

He looks to Max pleadingly. She looks like she is about to pass out.

“I don’t know” she whimpers helplessly, “I know Billy was an asshole and Neil is horrible to him but, he would never _kill_.”

Doubt makes her voice waver and Steve feels like the floor is about to drop out beneath him.

“He never talks about her, ever.” She continues in a whisper, “Any time I brought it up he got so angry so I never tried again. I just – Steve, I don’t _know_.”

Steve shakes his head so violently he feels dizzy, “No. This is crazy, are you kidding me? Billy wouldn’t do that. He _couldn’t_ -”

_Has he told you how she died? What he did?_

“We need to go deeper,” El says, cutting through the quiet, “We need to know the truth.”

“El, are you sure?” Hopper says, hand on her shoulder, thumb rubbing against her collarbone. The curly haired girl looks up at him and nods.

 “I need something of her,” she says, looking to Max.

_Has he told you about his mother? She’s the one that gave him that necklace._

Steve remembers that night in the tunnels, watching Billy rip the necklace he wore like a promise off his chest and glare at it as it lay on the floor. He remembers the look of complete conflict on his face. He remembers watching him snatch it up and shove it in the pockets of his jeans and how he’s never seen it on his chest since.

But he had seen it hanging from the rear-view mirror of his car. The car that he had left parked in the Byer’s drive the night he had stayed with Steve. They often did that; left the Camaro in all its gleaming glory at the Byers where anyone could see it so if Neil ever called Joyce to check on Max when she stayed, if he ever chanced to drive by and check, he would see evidence of Billy being right there with her while Billy drove across town slouched down in the passenger seat of Steve’s Beamer.

“His Mom’s necklace. It’s in the Camaro.”

Johnathan marches forwards, Nancy by his side, “we’ll go get it, you guys get the stuff for El, we’ll meet back her in an hour.”

They all affirm the plan and Steve is jittery with nerves. Movement all around as everyone sets to task. Nancy and Johnathan disappear out the door and the sound of Johnny’s car revving up fires Steve into action.

An hour later, the tub in the cabin’s bathroom is filled with salted water. El lying in it with a blindfold on and Billy’s Mom’s necklace around her neck. Joyce holds her shoulders as she sinks into the water, Hopper standing warily behind as he watches his kid delve in to her headspace.

Steve hovers by the door, bouncing with nervous energy. Max paces around in the hallway, the rest of the gang in the living room, murmuring quietly among themselves.

El takes a breath and goes still.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: graphic depictions of abuse. 
> 
> I was tearing up while writing this chapter. 
> 
> More to come! I think the next chapter will be the last one.
> 
> I just want to say a huge thank you to all the support on this story and all the wonderful comments that have been making my day. I really appreciate it all its amazing. I'm so glad everyone is enjoying this story, I have had so much fun writing it (though, not so much fun hurting my boy Billy) that's why I've been firing though with the uploads!
> 
> Thank you to all out there reading <3 
> 
> V

The moment Billy opens his eyes and finds himself back in that dark place, he knows he is not alone.

He sits up in the water and looks around, surging to his feet when he sees a familiar form standing a ways off.

“El?”

She turns to him and he doesn’t realise how much he has missed a kind face until she smiles.

“Billy.”

He runs to her, skidding and splashing through the water and she looks just as relieved to see him as he is to see her and that small kindness is like ice on a burn. He stutters to a half near her, takes in her face. She smiles, her curls bouncing around her face, looking tired and pale but she can _see_ him and it is enough to make him cry.

She reaches out and he goes to shake his head at her, tell her it’s no use, she can’t touch him here. When her hand presses against his chest it is like a blow to the stomach. He laughs, breathy and loud, staring down at where her fingers press into the fabric of his shirt like she has presented him with a pile of gold.

He can feel her touch, cool against his skin and it is so wonderful.

She smiles wider at him and he surges forwards, crushes her to his chest and revels in just being able to feel _someone_.

“You’re real, how are you here?” he asks, pulling away to look at her.

Her face saddens, “we need to help you,” she says, “we need to go deeper.”

He frowns, “deeper? Deeper here? There’s nothing.”

He’s run this place for miles, running harder than he’s ever had through the dark and gotten nowhere. Its oddly claustrophobic, feeling suffocated by the endless space. He’s spent too much time in this awful place and he knows there is nothing more, no escape.

El just shakes her head, “deeper here,” she says, pointing to the skin over his heart that peeks through the deep collar of his shirt.

She smiles gently at his confused expression, “we need to bring you back.”

He doesn’t understand. He’s only heart snippets of what happened to Will. He knows he went though something similar, not as much as Billy by the sounds of it. None of them talk about it much, too many bad memories. From what he’s heard, it was those closest to him that managed to get through.

Steve had tried. Max had tried. He doesn’t have anyone else he cares about. He doesn’t have those people that Will has that know him to his soul, that can paint his life in memories with him. He’s going to be stuck in this place forever. He’s never going to escape.

“It’s no use,” he tells her, tightening his jaw and looking out into the dark, “I don’t have anything. Its took too much. I can’t fight it.”

El looks so sad and it hurts his heart.

She raises a hand and Billy notices the glint of gold against her chest. Her fingers hold the medallion of his mother’s necklace and Billy’s knees weaken. He brings his hand slowly, traces the cold metal and gasps when it remains cold against his touch. He had touched it time and time again since all this shit happened and wound up jerking his hand away as it burned his skin like fire. He presses it into his palm and feels it warm with his touch, but it doesn’t burn.

He understands then. They need to go deeper. They need to peel away the layers around his heart and they know that she is the key. Billy feels a pit in his stomach.

“It won’t work,” he tells her, dropping the medal back to her chest, “she’s gone.”

El just shakes her head, curls bouncing and she presses her hand back to his chest.

“She is here.”

Billy frowns, completely lost.

_“Billy?”_

He feels every one of his nerves tingle in his body. He turns slowly and feels the breath rush out of him.

She stands like she did before. Her golden curls swaying in a breeze Billy can’t feel. She looks so beautiful, she always looked beautiful. Everything about her was. Billy has endless memories of her smiling face, shining in the California sun. Her laugh like the call of the birds early in the morning. Her voice soft and warm as she sang him to sleep, wrapped up in her arms, feeling so safe.

She always wore long summer dresses, patterned with flowers and leaves and it sways around her, the end dipping in and out of the water. She raises a hand and beckons Billy forwards and he goes to her like a baby taking his first steps.

He can _feel_ her. Her fingers are warm where they touch his cheek, wipe away his tears gently. She smiles so warmly, and Billy feels his walls break and crumble around him, leaving him the little boy he used to be who loved his mother more than anything else in the world.

She holds him to her chest and lets him cry, strokes his curls, kisses his forehead and murmurs small comforts to him. He revels in her warmth, in the feeling of her warm skin beneath his hands, her heart beating sure and strong against his ear.

“I miss you,” he says, voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper, choked by the lump lodged huge and painful in his throat.

 _“Billy,”_ she says again.

He pulls away and looks at her face, drinks it in, looking so real and detailed. She had started to fade in his mind after all the years without her. He could remember the shadow of her, but he forgot the way the freckles dust the bridge of her nose. How her eyes were marked with crow’s feet from all the times she smiled and laughed. The smell of her; floral and warm, like her favourite flowers in the spring rain and sun.

He hears water trickle and splash and he turns to see El standing close, tears running down her face, hand wrapped around the necklace.

“We need to go deeper.”

He doesn’t know what she means. He doesn’t know what she wants him to do.

Her eyes sadden and she looks past him to his Mom.

Her blue eyes sadden. Her skin grows pale before him and those horrible bruises return, blooming purple and dark across her skin. Those cuts scratch themselves across her cheeks, her lip, her arms. He shakes his head and backs away when she stumbles and moans in pain.

“No, no, please stop,” he gasps out, “I can’t watch it again, please.”

Another form takes shape behind her, tall and menacing and too familiar.

His father looks younger, his hair is a mess, his breathing coming quick and harsh in angry, heavy breaths. He holds a belt in his hand and he’s looking at Billy.

Billy doubles over, can feel the aftermath of the belt’s cut on his back. He groans and curls his hands in to fists in the water as he feels the sharp sting of the buckle, knows his back is bleeding and scaring, knows it because he felt it a million times before when he was just a kid.

He staggers to his feet, feels as if his back is on _fire_. His father looms over him, huge and terrifying.

_“Neil, stop!”_

His father’s arm rises again and the belt cuts down against his shoulder, forces him to a knee as he shouts out. His eyes burn with tears and he can hear his mother screaming.

_“Stop it, Neil! He’s just a child! Stop it!”_

_“I’ll punish him however I want to,”_ his father seethes, _“he needs to learn to be a man. Respect and responsibility. No son of mine will be running around like some goddamn fucking fairy.”_

He raises his arm again, but it stops just before it surges down. Billy watches his mother use all her strength to pull Neil back, shoves against him as hard as she can and puts her body between him and Billy.

“M-Mom -”

_“Stay behind me, baby.”_

Neil looks furious _, “you dare raise a hand against me? You fucking whore – its your fault he’s like this.”_

_“Don’t you dare touch him, you bastard. I won’t let you.”_

Neil throws the belt aside and his fist curls. Before Billy can even make a sound, he watches it connect with his mother’s face and sees her reel back, falling to the floor.

He screams when his father’s boot connects with her ribs. He feels sick when he hears her cry out, a gurgled, awful choking sound. She coughs and he doesn’t stop. His fists fly at her, profanities leave his mouth and he stumbles drunk, falls against a wall as he kicks at her.

Billy cries, clamps his fists over his ears and screams. His father doesn’t stop. He’s going to kill her.

He surges to his feet, running to the kitchen and grabs the first thing he can find. He runs on his small legs back to his mother and throws himself in front of her, wildly swinging the knife at his father.

He feels the cut of the blade through his skin where he swipes at his arm. Neil staggers back and looks at the gash, looks at Billy like he can’t believe he would even dare.

 _“You fucking monster,”_ he hisses, blood seeping through the sleeve of his shirt.

The knife is wrenched out his grasp and he is tugged forwards, his arm burning in its socket. He screams and Neil throws him against a wall. He thuds his head against it with a sickening sound and his world goes fuzzy and black. He blinks and can just make out his mother’s blonde hair falling across her face as she forces herself to her feet.

She throws herself at Neil and he turns fast. He turns blind. He’s too drunk and too angry and forgets what’s in his hand.

The knife slices through the soft skin of his mother’s neck and Billy watches in horror as the blood seeps out, soaks her lovely summer dress.

The knife clatters to the floor and Neil backs away, looking like he can’t believe himself what he has just done.

Billy crawls over, his head ringing, vision blurry. Her blood soaks through his clothes and her skin still feels warm. His tears blur his vision and his hands shake violently. He looks at her face and her eyes stare unseeing up at the ceiling. His vision swoops and everything goes black.

Billy reels back, coming out of the vision like a drowning man.

He falls back into the water and scrambles away from those memories, but they have already faded. Hands touch his shoulders and he reels, throwing his arms out to escape their hold and El’s face comes in to view.

She looks as heart broken as he feels, face messy with tears, sobs wracking her small body.

He’s breathing hard when he looks up at her, choked by memories he had forgot. Details he had buried so deep he had thought them a dream.

He clings to her.

“I should have come home when he said. I shouldn’t have made him so _angry_.”

His voice is wrecked and he can’t get enough air into his lungs. El shakes her head, crying openly, little fingers clinging to him.

“Not your fault,” she sobs out.

He shakes his head, “I’m the reason she is gone. It was me.”

“No,” she says, “Your Papa. Bad man. Monster.”

He can’t fucking _breathe_.

“I forgot. I woke in a hospital and my Mom was gone and my Dad told me it was some freak accident. That someone had broken in the house. I don’t know why, I couldn’t remember anything.”

El holds him close, cries with him and he lets out all the grief he has unknowingly held in for so long.

He closes his eyes and can’t get rid of the sight of his mother lying there.

When he opens them again. He’s not in that place anymore.

 

 

 

V

 

 

 

El had come back to them thrashing, spilling water over the edges of the bathtub. Hopper rushed to her as she ripped the blindfold off her face and she clung to him, horrible sobs wracking her body.

Steve had jerked up from where he leaned against the doorframe in alarm. Joyce and Mike hovered around, looking at El with stricken faces as she cried into the chief’s shoulder. He had held her close in his big embrace, hands stroking up and down her back, trying in vain to settle her.

Eventually, she had calmed and they had given her privacy with Joyce and Hoper to settle. Now, they all sat in the living room, nervous energy thrumming in the room.

When El reappeared, she looked ashen and small, huddled against Hopper’s side. Mike had gone to her, wrapping an arm around her and she had seated herself on the couch rigidly.

She had told them everything.

Steve had fought the nausea churning in his gut all the while. The faces around him had turned from curious and nervous to horrified and there wasn’t a dry face in the whole room. Joyce had covered her face and walked away when El had described Billy’s father’s abuse. She had buried her face in the sleeves of her cardigan and let out an awful sob.

Max had curried her face into Lucas’ shoulder when she told them how Billy had lept to defend his mother.  

Steve had felt ready to faint when she had told them how his mother had lay in a pool of her own blood with her young son clinging to her lifeless body.

After, they had sat in silence.

Steve was shaking, vaguely aware of Nancy’s hands on his shoulders, of Dustin’s weight against his arm. He felt like he was encased in a bubble, his body shaking uncontrollably and awful, shocked jerks and he felt so goddamn sick.

No one knew what to say. What could be said after something like that? Steve had never known anything so horrible.

“Thank you, El,” he had managed to croak out, so goddamn grateful and sorry for all she had gone through to help. The girl has turned tear stained cheeks to him and nodded. She was strong, so strong, stronger than he could ever hope to be.

Joyce made them coffee, needing something to do. Every time she stopped to think or look around, she had sobbed into her hands, so she made every one of them coffee and hot chocolates to distract herself while they all took in the story.

The coffee helped. It burned his tongue and seared its way into his belly and the sugar stopped his shaking eventually, the heat of it made him feel less numb.

“We need to go to the station,” Johnathan said after what felt like hours of quiet. His jaw strained, fist clenching and unclenching, “this has to end.”

“I’ll fucking kill that bastard, Neil Hargrove,” Hopper had said darkly, hands tight around his mug, “I’ll put that sick bastard away so he never sees the light of day again.”

Steve had looked at Max on instinct but her face was hard, her lip twisted in disgust and she nodded her head at Hopper’s words.

Heartbreak had been replaced by a protective, angry emotion in them all. Fight burned strong through Steve.

“I’m sick of asking nice,” he said, rising to his feet. He looked around at them all, “I’m done with this Demon bullshit. I’ll kill it. I’m done watching it make Billy suffer.”

The drive to the station was fast in the dark, Hopper’s lights shining the way. It was late. The station was empty. The roads of Hawkins dead. The very moon seemed to be holding its breath. Hopper let them all in and they moved through the office space to the cells at the back. The place was quiet as the grave and they walked silently past the bars to the solitary cells.

Billy is awake and waiting.

The holding cell is a square of bars in the middle of the room. They surround it, setting down the heaters and plugging them in.

Billy stands in the centre of the Devil’s trap and watches them silently.

He looks scared. He looks shaken to his core. Steve would believe it was just Billy in there, but those black eyes watch him move around the room.

Mike had said to him, after Will’s possession, that when they had been in the shed with him, it had been too much like Will. He had sat still and terrified, strapped to the chair. His wide eyes looking at each of them in fear, unable to recognise them but listening to every word they said. He hadn’t thrashed and shouted, he hadn’t screamed or yelled profanities. He had been silent and calm, listening to them all as they tried to remind him who they were.

When they had saved him, it had been awful. Nancy had told him how the room had seared in heat, Joyce turning the heaters up as far as they would go. How hard it had been to watch little Will thrash and scream that they were burning him, how Johnathan had to turn away.

He steels himself. Looks straight into those black eyes and turns the dial on his heater until the grill lights up orange. The head from it is immediate, the smell of plastic heating and the burn of the metal filling the air. The rest of them follow suit.

Billy’s head whips around, looking in fright at each of them as the room starts to warm.

“Billy, are you in there?” Hopper calls out.

He is met with silence.

“We’re all here to help you, son. We need you to help us fight this thing.”

 **“Let me go,”** the blond says, voice deep. He stands tall and proud in the trap, glaring at them each in turn with those awful black eyes.

“Can’t do that, buddy,” Dustin says from beside Steve, flinching when Billy’s gaze cuts to him.

**“You’ve tried already. Billy’s not coming back.”**

Dustin shrugs, pushes his heater closer to the bars and Billy flinches back, “well, third time’s the charm.”

Billy shies away from the heat and the rest of them move closer too. Sweat breaks out on Steve’s skin as the small room warms fast.

Billy back up, eyes darting about wildly. He grits his teeth.

**“Let me go. Let me go. LET ME GO!”**

He throws his body forwards, but the edge of the Demon trap stops him. Like an invisible wall, Billy’s body thuds against it and he shouts out, reeling back like he had been burned. He throws himself against it again and again, Steve’s stomach turning with his screams, watching his body get tossed around by the barrier that holds him in.

“Billy, stop!” Max yells, “you have to listen to us – stop it!”

He thrashes and screams and the lights in the room flicker. The heaters shake where they stand on the ground and Steve plants his feet, reaching out to grasp on to Dustin who reels as he trips over the cable of his. The kid looks up at him, face full of fear and determination and Steve’s heart swells when he just nods his curly head at him and grasps his arm and holds on.

 Eventually, Billy seems to tire himself out.

The lights stop flickering, humming as they return to normal. The room falls quiet and Billy falls to his knees, gasping and breathing hard as his finger nails scratch into the floor. It has no effect on the paint of the trap. Those inside can’t escape unless someone from the outside lets them, but still, Billy’s fingers claw and claw until they are bloody.

When he stills, they all just watch him. His face is hidden by his curls and he just sits there, looking so small and pitiful.

“Billy?” he calls out, “it’s me, Steve. You remember me?”

He doesn’t move.

“I know you do,” he continues, not letting the silence deter him, “you remember the story I told you last time? About our first kiss?”

Nothing.

“We’ve been together for nearly six months now. You are a complete asshole and you drive me up the wall with your fast driving and your loud ass music and your endless teasing, calling me names. But, I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything in my life. You’re my whole world and I would rather die than have to go another day without you.”

Billy’s head turns just a fraction towards him, but other than that, he remains still.

“You make me so goddamn happy. You make me laugh and make me braver than I ever thought I could be and you make me feel like I can do anything I put my mind to. You make me feel safe and I know you would never hurt me. Not in a million years”

Billy’s body stiffens, shoulders hunched and hands curling into fists.

“I forgave you a long time ago for everything we were before. That night at my house wasn’t you. It was that thing inside you, you fought it and I wouldn’t be standing here today if it wasn’t for that. You have to fight this thing, baby. We’re all here for you, we love you and we’re not letting it win.”

His head turns more, black eyes look through the tendrils of his hair to Steve’s booted feet. Tears streak his cheeks.

“Billy, we know about your mom,” Max says.

Billy shudders, hands his head again.

“We saw everything. How she died. It wasn’t your fault.”

Billy presses his bloody fists to his ears, whining, **“I made him so angry. He hated me. I should have stayed home and none of it would have happened.”**

“You were just a kid,” Joyce says, her voice choked from her tears, “you have nothing to blame yourself for.”

Billy shakes his head, thuds his fists against this skull.

**“No.”**

“Papa’s fault,” El says, “Bad man.”

Billy’s eyes look to her through his bloodied hair and he shudders again.

“You loved her so much,” Joyce whispers, crouching down on the floor to level her eyes with Billy’s, “and she loved you. She wouldn’t want this for you. She wouldn’t want to see you in so much pain.”

The room is suffocatingly warm now and Billy’s body is soaked with sweat, his shirt dirty and torn, clinging to his skin. His muscles roll beneath his skin as his body contorts.

**“It hurts! It fucking hurts!”**

Steve grits his teeth, fights the urge to go to him, to switch the heaters off, to stop watching the guy he loves suffer.

“I know, baby, I know,” he says, “it will be over soon.”

Billy shakes his head and rolls, writhing on the floor as the heat grows more intense. Everyone strips off jackets and stands in sweat soaked clothes, worried gazes on Billy as he shakes and shudders and screams.

**“Let me go! It’s burning – it hurts! Let me go!”**

“It’s not working,” El shouts out.

Steve feels his heart stutter at her words. It has to work. It has to. He’s not going to accept anything else. His stomach lurches at the sound of Billy’s screams and watching him twist and thrash against the pain. The lights start to flicker again, wind whipping up, blowing the hot heat around the room in a whirlwind. Those black veins crawl over Billy’s skin, alive and moving, thick and horrible as they twist across his face, down his neck, his chest, wrap around the skin of his bare feet.

Nancy covers her mouth with her hands and suddenly Steve remembers how she had thrust a hot poker into Will’s side to save him.

He turns to Hopper, “let me in.”

“What? Are you crazy?

“Just open the cell and let me in! Close it behind me!”

Hopper just stares at him.

“Trust me! I know what I’m doing!”

Hopper gives him a long look, glancing between him and the writhing form of Billy and growls. He pushes past Steve, digs out a chain of keys from his jacket and thumbs through to the right one. He slides it into the lock.

“He touches a hair on your head, kid, I’m tasering him again,” he tells him.

Steve just nods, determination steeling his nerves.

Hopper turns the key and the door opens. Billy’s black eyes fly to him as he slides himself into the cell, standing against the bars as Hopper locks them behind him.

Billy thrashes on the floor, trying to keep his eyes on Steve but the heat around him makes the thing inside him shudder and scream. His fingers claw at the floor and his back arches horribly. Steve slides to his knees and shuffles closer, staying just out of arms reach and away from the lines of the trap.

“Steve, buddy, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he hears Dustin call out.

Steve has _no idea_ what he is doing but this is the only idea he’s got.

He wraps a hand around the warm bars of the cage behind him and leans forwards, glares down at Billy’s writhing form. Black eyes stare up at him defiantly.

“You know my shit, you asshole,” he hisses, “everyone leaves me; my parents, my friends, Nancy, everyone.”

He digs the medallion necklace out of the pocket of his jeans and he doesn’t feel scared anymore, “we have a family now. All of us. You don’t get to leave me. I’m not going to let you.”

Billy convulses and squeezes his eyes shut, those black veins making his skin look grey, bleeding thick and horrible across his entire body, crawling thick up his neck.

Steve surges forwards, slams his hand down on Billy’s bare, sweaty, overheated chest. The metal of the medallion against his palm. Billy jerks and screams, Steve can feel it burning against his palm, into the Cali boy’s skin but he doesn’t let go.

Billy shudders, arching his back and his curls plaster to his sweaty face.

He opens his mouth and shrieks.

Black slime and smoke billows out of his mouth. The veins bleed up, out of his skin, up his neck and out his gaping jaw. The smoke, so thick it darkens the room. When all of it has left Billy’s body, he goes completely limp.

El reaches out her hands to the huge cloud of smoke and it screams and writhes in the air. Blood pours out of her nose and she screams with it, curls her fingers into fists. The thing writhes one more time before it explodes, burning out in black flames. The flames burn cold, bringing a sudden chill to the room and the lights flicker to black. When the flames die, the room is quiet and the thing is no more.

Steve’s vision clears and he looks at Billy in the dim glow of the heaters.

The blond lies completely still. His eyes closed, his skin pale, his chest unmoving.

“He – he’s not breathing!” Steve yells.

Hopper surges into action, unlocks the door and rips it open, falling to his knees on either side of Billy’s lifeless form.

Steve watches in sheer panic as Hopper presses his ear to his chest, puts a hand over his mouth.

“No heartbeat,” he says quietly.

The chief puts a hand under Billy’s neck and pulls him up to lie how he wants him. Then he curls his fingers around his hand and presses hard into Billy’s chest. He pumps against him, rhythmic pulses, trying desperately to get the guy breathing. The medallion clinks against his skin with the movements. He stops and closes Billy’s nose with his finger and thumb, holds his mouth open and covers it with his own, breaths long and steady into him.

More pumps on his chest, more breathing into his mouth, “come on, kid, come on,” hopper growls out, hair falling into his face with his movements. Billy lies still.

Steve can’t breathe. He can’t move. His hands clutches to Billy’s, limps and cold in his grasp. His heart is in his throat and all he can do is watch.

Hopper thumps on Billy’s chest, presses against it again and again and hours seem to go by.

All at once, Billy’s eyes fly open, glittering brilliant sapphire blue. Her coughs and rolls, gasping and spluttering as Hopper and Steve back away to give him room. He rolls onto his back again and groans long and low, eyes squeezing shut.

“Jesus,” he croaks out, “who’s been jumping on my chest?”

Steve laughs, tears blurring his eyes and feels light as air. Blue eyes move to his and Billy smiles up at him softly, “hey, Princess,” he says, voice hoarse and ruined.

Steve throws himself at him, wraps his arms around his neck and holds him close. He feels Billy chuckle and groan, but his arms come around Steve, holding him with whatever strength he has left.

“Oh my God, fuck you,” Steve breathes against those golden curls, “I thought you were a goner.”

Billy strokes the back of his head and chuckles, “don’t get rid of me that easy,” he rasps.

“Okay, give the kid some room to breathe,” Hoper says, gently prying Steve off of him, “Billy, can you sit up?”

Billy nods and pushes himself up with a groan. Hopper presses his hand against his back and helps him sit. The blond scrubs a hand over his face and looks up at the many faces around him.

“Despite what you all might think,” he says, voice like gravel, “this is my first time waking up in a cell.”

Laughs erupt all around and a feeling of relief washes over everyone.

A blur of red and Max has plastered herself against Billy. He seems to stutter for a moment before realising what is happening and when he does, he tugs her into his lap, wraps his arms around her and buries his face into her hair.

The lights come back on and Mike and the rest move around to click off the heaters.

Max sniffs and climbs off Billy, wiping at her node and her eyes with her arm. Billy looks at her and nods, smiling unsure and Max smiles back, beams at her brother.

“Okay, let’s try getting you up, do you think you can stand?” Hopper asks.

Billy kicks his legs slowly, feeling them and nods, “let’s find out.”

Steve wraps one arm around his shoulders and Hopper does the same, pushing to their feel, hauling Billy up with them. Steve watches, unsure and Billy tries to support himself but sags and his knees buckle. The catch him and hold him up, supporting his weight between them both.

“Okay, easy,” Hop says, moving slowly with them out of the cell, “someone, call an ambulance.”

Mike and Dustin hurry out the room to find one of the office phones despite Billy’s protests. He sags and nearly falls again and that shuts him up.

Everyone watches in concern as Billy’s head rolls, dizzy with exhaustion and groaning in pain.

“Jesus, being possessed is no walk in the park,” he grumbles, and Steve uses his other hand to push the curls out of his face and tuck them behind his head. The medallion is caught on the collar of his shirt, chain looked around one of the buttons and Steve pulls it free, slipping it into the pocket of his jeans and Billy gives him a small, grateful smile.

They get him out of the room, moving slowly, Joyce, Nancy and Johnathan holding doors open for them, watching with concerned faces and Billy stumbles and sags between them. Hopper says they can leave the heaters and the paint for later, tells Lucas to lock the door behind them so no one can get in and see the mess they left behind.

When they reach the doors to the station, Billy stops, tugs them to a halt and everyone looks to him worriedly. He turns to Hopper.

“Thank you,” he croaks out, eyes shifting to El who is huddled into the chief’s side, mouth bloody and eyes watery but smiling at the Cali boy. “What it made me say, it’s not true.”

Hopper looks at him for a time then nods, hand stroking up and down El’s arm, “I know it wasn’t you, kid.”

Billy smiles weakly, “for the record. I think you’re a pretty great guy. El’s lucky to have you.”

Hopper’s eyes soften and he gives Billy a nod.

Joyce wraps her arm around El and smiles at Billy, “we all are.“

She reaches out and cups Billy’s face in her hand, smiles at him with all the love in the world, “welcome back, sweetie.”

When they push through the doors to the outside, Billy takes a deep breath and sighs, the cool air of early morning soothing his burning skin. He looks like hell, they all do, but he grins as his head grows fuzzy and exhaustion takes over.

The ambulance is waiting for them and they lift Billy’s limp body into the gurney. Steve climbs in with Hopper and the doors slam shut on the rest of the party.

He stares down at Billy’s sleeping face and holds his hand the entire way to the hospital.


	7. Chapter 7

Billy is sick of waking up in places he doesn’t recognise.

The white of the room is blinding but it’s not what pulls him out of sleep.

It’s the bodies sitting on his bed, crushing his legs, squeezing him into the mattress. Voices filling the air, bickering people. Loud, _loud people_.

“Okay, but you have to admit that time up at the Quarry when he went all crazy Demon and lifted up in the air with the wind and the veins – dude it looks baddass as shit.”

That’s Dustin’s voice, he realises, feels the bed move as what must be him bounces up and down.

“Sure, baddass for you and the most terrifying moment of my life,” that’s Steve’s dry reply and Billy smiles to himself.

“Well, yeah, it was scary – I nearly turned around and ran home.”

“His eyes, that was the scariest part by far. I hated seeing them look at me,”

That’s Max.

Billy feels a chill run over his body. He really had given them all a fright, he wouldn’t blame them for being scared of him now more than ever. The things that Demon had made him do. Made him say.

“He’s back now, the Demon’s gone and he’s safe, that’s all that matters.”

That’s Joyce. The murmurs of agreement around the room make him warm and a lump form in his throat.

He had been terrified in the dark place. These were people who knew his bad, right to the core and they could all have turned on him. Could have walked away and left him to suffer. But here, feeling them all around, hearing their voices warm as they spoke about him. He could sense the family in the room, and it made him open his eyes, wanting to join them again.

“Hey, his eyes are open.”

“Dustin, get _off_ him.”

“Max is up here too!”

“Just don’t accidentally unplug anything, please,” Steve says tiredly, his voice closer.

Billy blinks as a blurry face swims into view.

“Billy? You with us?”

He nods and smiles, lets Steve fuss with his pillows as he sits up, sorts them comfortably against his back, “yeah, pretty boy, I’m here.”

The small room is filled with familiar faces.

Joyce sits with Will in her lap on a big, green armchair, leaning forwards and smiling at him. El and Mike sit on plastic seats near here, paused in conversation to look over to him. Dustin and Max are seated on the end on his bed, Dustin’s legs slowly cutting off the feeling in his right leg. Lucas stands at the end, holding a deck of cards that match the ones his sister and the Henderson kid are holding. Johnathan and Nancy lean against the wall by the door sipping coffees and they both smile and come forwards when he turns bleary eyes their way.

Steve is sat by his side, looking tired and pale, his hair a complete and utter mess. But, he’s smiling, looking so relieved to see him.

“I can’t feel my legs.”

“Guys, get off him,” Lucas hisses, helping Max hop of the end of the bed and leaves Dustin to shuffle off on his own, getting his pants leg caught on the bed frame and stumble to the floor. It makes Billy chuckle.

“How do you feel, sweetheart?” Joyce asks, hands holding Will close, her tired face smiling over to Billy.

He does a small self-assessment. One of many he’s had to do in his life after boughts of being thrown around. His legs are fine, his ribs are fine, his face doesn’t hurt. His head feels woozy and he is tired down to is bones. He doesn’t feel injured or out of control. There’s no voice in his head.

“ ‘M’ thirsty,” he says, throat dry and voice hoarse.

Steve surges into action, pours him a cup of water from a plastic decanter sitting nearby. He comes forwards, presses the rim to Billy’s chapped lips and tilts it slowly into his mouth, hand on the back of his head, stroking through his curls.

“The Doctor said you’d be thirsty and tired. You’re dehydrated and running on barely any sleep. You’ve been out for three days.”

Billy swallows the whole cup down and sits back, “Jesus, three _days_?”

He lurches forwards, eyes on Max “Dad -”

She shakes her head at him, comes forwards to slip her hand into his.

“He’s gone, Billy. Hopper arrested him.”

“What?”

“After you got here, the doctors started asking questions,” Steve supplies, holding Billy’s other hand in his, stroking his thumb across his skin.

“Hopper put out a warrant for you Dad’s arrest and he’s been in holding. He contacted the bureau in California and they’ve re-opened your Mom’s case.”

Billy feels his nerves alive, his stomach twisting in anxiety.

“Do you remember everything?” Max asks softly.

Billy looks down.

He remembers all of it. Remembers El in the upside down with him as he relived the worst day of his entire life. Those memories meld with the real ones, the ones that happened when he was just nine years old, still living with his mother in her house. He remembers coming home from being with his friends past curfew, how Neil had already been drunk and stumbling and how he had punished Billy for it.

He remembers the smell of the roses in the garden and the heat of the sun warming the small house, the whir of the tiny fan in the living room. He remembers everything that happened that day.

He nods, blinking away the tears and the hands holding his tighten.

“Hopper says if you testify against your Dad, he would be put away for life. The case got closed from lack of evidence. Your dad told the police he had been out drinking all night and came home to find you and your Mom.”

Billy jitters in the bed. His head swoons and he feels the familiar panic rise in his chest when his father is involved. Neil always seemed invincible to Billy. He had eyes and earls everywhere, friend in high and low places that could get him out of any mess he had stirred up. Even when Billy couldn’t remember what he had done to his Mom, he remembered every time he had beaten him since. Some were worse than others and he would always lie in his room, nursing his wounds and think that he would never escape him. His plan had always been to wait until he turns eighteen and pack up his car and leave him in the dirt and never look back. The more beatings he got, the more involved with Max’s life he was forced to be, the more his father hung it over his head that he had responsibilities here. It seemed like a joke that he would ever be anywhere but under his thumb.

Now, so much has changed. He remembers _everything._ So much, enough to get him put away for life. He wonders what that would mean for him, for Max.

The kid deserves a father. She deserved a good family that love her and make her feel safe. He’s sick of seeing her scared face peel around walls when Neil leaves him bloody. He’s sick of watching her Mother turn her head away and ignore what is happening right in front of her. Her Dad, her real Dad, had been heartbroken to see her go. Billy knew Max contacted him from time to time, secret phone calls at booths in town every month or so. Maybe she would go back to live with him.

The thought soured in his gut. He didn’t want to see Max leave. Her Mom couldn’t support her on her own, that’s if she would even want anything to do with them after coming out about Neil’s abuse of him. What if she denied it like she denied Billy’s beatings? What would happen to them then?

He was going to be eighteen in the summer. He could get a job, get his own place, Max could stay with him. Maybe, even Steve could live with them. Billy liked that idea. A place of their own, where they could see each other every day instead of sneaking around. Billy could actually fall asleep with him at night and still be there to watch him open his eyes again in the morning. He had always left during the night to sneak back home so his father wouldn’t know.

Maybe he could make this work. Maybe, it would be okay.

He’s pulled from his thoughts and doesn’t realise how silent he’s been. All those faces peer at him in concern and he realises he’s been holding Max and Steve’s hands in a death grip while his thoughts paraded around in his head. It’s too much to think about right now. He just wants to be in this moment. He can’t think about his father, about graduation, about what happens next. It’s too much.

Joyce, as always, seems to sense his distress and puts him out of his misery.

“That’s enough for now,” she says, leaning forwards as Will climbs out of her lap and stands, holding her hand.

“You get some sleep, Billy. We’ll check in on you again tomorrow, okay?”

He nods at her, relieved and they all pile out the door sending him smiles and goodbyes and see you soon’s.

Max turns to him as Lucas pauses at the door and she leans down, wraps him up in a hug, her thick, red hair falling into his face.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she says into his shoulder.

He nods and rubs at her back. She pulls away with a smile and darts out the room after the rest of her friends. The door clicks shut behind them.

He blows out a sigh and Steve fusses with his pillows again, fixes his rumpled covers, pours him another water and demands he drink it. Billy does as he’s told, smiling all the while and lets his eyes wander down the stretch of Steve’s shirt over his back as he leans over to put the cup back on the table.

A Doctor comes in and gives him the lo-down on his condition. Dehydration. Sleep Deprivation. Mild bruising and scratches over his skin but, other than that, he seems to be okay. Should be able to go home the next day after some final checks.

He doesn’t know, of course, about the whole possession thing. Billy guesses Hopper’s managed to spin him some story to cover for him. When the Doctor leaves him to get some rest, Steve tells him he was worried that he might need some kind of scan or tests done to check how the Demon treated his insides. They all agreed that after Will’s possession, he was fine once the Demon had been banished from him. So, they are keeping it between them what really happened.

“Just need to keep a close eye on you over the next few weeks,” Steve says, looking like his usual worried mother hen self.

He fixes some of Billy’s wires and turns to him again. His eyes look over Billy lying there, taking in every inch of him. He runs a hand through his hair and smiles.

“Man, you don’t know how happy I am you’re okay.”

Billy looks at him and holds his arms open. Steve doesn’t hesitate as he climbs carefully into the bed, buries his face into Billy’s neck and wraps himself around him.

Billy revels in the feeling of that body against his again, slips his hands under the thin t-shirt to rub against soft, warm skin. He turns his head and buried his nose into sweet smelling hair and closes his eyes, feeling calm.

“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

He feels Steve’s shoulders move as he chuckles, snuggling into him, arms holding him tighter. He presses a kiss to Billy’s skin and rubs his fingers against his side through the hospital gown he wears.

“Oh, almost forgot,” Steve says, rolling over and digging his hand into the pocket of his jeans. He pulls out Billy’s mother’s necklace carefully, holds it out to the blond in his palm like a broken bird.

Billy looks at it for a long time, reaches out to gently touch the dull gold and feels it cool against his fingers. He looks at Steve and smiles, ducks his head as an invitation.

The brunet chuckles, shifts so he can fasten it around his neck. When Billy leans back down, feels the cold metal settle against his chest again, he feels the last ropes of anxiety uncurl and fade away from his heart. Steve touches it as he settles back against Billy, traces across the figure of Saint Flora gently. He wraps his arms around Billy again, tucking himself back into his embrace.

They lie like that for a long time. Its late in the day already and the sun is setting outside the window. Billy turns his head and watches orange, yellow and red slowly fade to purple blue and eventually black. He hears cars driving by every so often, the occasional shout of someone out on the street, the music playing from somewhere nearby. Eventually, everything is quiet, and he lies with Steve in the dark.

“Will you testify against him?”

Billy nearly jumps at the sound of Steve’s voice, thinking he had long since fallen asleep.

“I think so, yeah.”

He trails his fingers over Steve’s skin, feels the soft fabric of his shirt on the back of his hand. He can feel every inch of him pressed against him and he revels in it, on being able to feel another person’s touch. His mind keeps running back to seeing him in the dark place and how no matter how he screamed and thrashed, Steve couldn’t see him, couldn’t touch him. It had been complete torture.

“Will you be there?”

Steve turns his head to look up at Bill, looking sleepy and soft in the dark, big eyes gentle on him.

“Of course. When are you going to learn you’re not along in this anymore? We’re all here.”

Billy nods, tugs him close, feels his face nuzzle into his neck again, “I know.”

Steve shifts, a hand coming up to Billy’s cheek. The blond let him turn his head, looks down into those lovely brown eyes in that pretty face. Steve smiles, tip of his nose pressing against his own, breathing soft and warm against his jaw.

He presses a kiss to Steve’s lips and the guy immediately responds, sighing against his mouth, hands holding him close, body flush against his. Billy feels like he’s close to heaven when those soft lips part and his tongue slips into his mouth. Billy moans, presses fingers into warm skin and tilts his head to deepen the kiss. Steve is soft and sweet and wonderful against his mouth and he kisses him until his lungs burn and his head swims.

When he pulls away, they rest on the same pillow, Steve’s cheeks a lovely pink glow, eyes hooded, breathing deep. He traces a finger across Billy’s cheeks, wipes at his tears, traces the seam of his lips.

“I was so fucking scared,” he whispers, “all I could think was please, God, let him come back.”

Billy doesn’t want to think about that now. He just wants this moment to stretch on forever, to be lost in this boy that means the world to him and gave him a family and all the love he never thought he would ever know. The guy that didn’t give up on him and pulled him from the dark.

The words he’s never had the guts to say bubble in his chest, slide up his throat, scramble over his tongue and push at his lips.

“I love you.”

He’s sure Steve can hear the thundering of his heart in his chest. Billy fights the instinct to make a joke, laugh it off and run away when the silence stretches on. But, Steve is smiling at him. He’s smiling bright as the fourth of July.

 “I love you too, asshole,” he grins, pressing a kiss to his lips again.

Billy’s heart swoons and his hands tug the boy closer, pulls him to straddle his hips and kicks the covers off his body. He kisses Steve like he’s desperate, it’s how he feels. He kisses Steve like he’s the very last breath of air in his lungs. Steve’s hands cradle his head, fingers curl into his hair. His tongue slides with his and his hips buck down against him until they both moan and tremble.

Its been so long. Too long. He revels in being wrapped up in the boy again, in the taste of his skin on his tongue when he tugs that t-shirt of his off and presses open mouthed kisses to his neck. Steve’s gentle with him, he’s always so gentle with him and the tenderness pulls at his heart.

He lets him pull the hospital gown over his head and Billy tucks them under the bed sheets. Steve pauses when his eyes roam over the dark blooms of bruising all over his skin, the scratches and scrapes mapping him out. His mouth follows them along, kisses each and every one of them until Billy’s trembling with need and tugs him back up to kiss him. He presses his weight into him slowly, gasping and moaning at the feeling of his body, naked and wonderful against his own. He feels him hard and leaking against his hip, bucks into the feeling and trembles when they brush together.

He's already feeling woozy, feels high from the feeling of Steve and the exhaustion that haunts him like a shadow. He won’t last long, chest bursting with feeling, like a drug addict breaking his withdrawal with a good, hard high.

Steve wraps his hand around both of them, leans up above Billy and thrusts against him, squeezing around them and Billy doesn’t give a shit who hears him moan, throws his head back into the plush pillow. Steve ducks his head, licks and sucks a nipple into his mouth and Billy jerks, hips moving erratically, chasing the high.

Steve looks so gddamn beautiful above him, bare and flushed, bathed in the moonlight  and the glow of the hospital corridor lights that filter through the misted glass of the door’s window. His hair falls into his face, eyes hooded and looking at Billy like he’s hung the moon. He leans down and kisses him firmly, hips moving faster, hand squeezing tighter. Billy comes with a shudder, fingers pressing in to Steve’s skin, head thrown back and entire body trembling. He feels it in every cell of his body, sweet tingles and electricity shooting right to the tips of his toes, the top of his head. He feels his come splatter across his chest and opens his eyes to see Steve watching him like he’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen.

The brunet leans down, kisses him hungrily and he trembles, hips stuttering against Billy’s as he finds his own release. Billy kisses him through it, messy and desperate and everything he’s been craving for so long. After, Steve cleans them up with the tissues on the bedside table, helps Billy back into his hospital gown and smiles at him as he sleepily lets Steve move him about to tie it.

He shrugs on his t-shirt and jeans and climbs back into the bed, Billy tucking him in against his body. He finds sleep easily, easier than he has in a long time. Steve’s soft breathing against his neck, the steady beat of his heart, the feeling of him warm and real around him. He closes his eyes and dreams of Steve surrounded by California sand, shining in the sun.

 

 

 

V

 

 

 

 

The trial lasted a full week.

Steve had been a completely nervous wreck.

It was held in the courthouse in Hawkins town, the representatives who had worked on the case before it had been closed travelled to the town and the place was buzzing with activity. Nothing exciting ever happened in Hawkins, Steve had scoffed to himself as he watched people gossiping everywhere he went.

Billy was quiet on the first day of the trial. They had all met at the Byer’s house, Billy dressed in a suit borrowed from Steve, a bit too tight around his shoulders and chest. Steve teased him when he watched him grumble and button the shirt to his neck, let him tie his tie for him. Steve had just given him a small smile and watched him press his fingers to his mother’s necklace through the material.

Joyce bustled about here and there, fussing with their suits, fixing Max’s hair, making sure everyone was ready and had everything they needed. Max was quiet but she had found some determination since the truth about her step-father had come out. She had no love for him to begin with, but now, any soft feeling for him had been replaced with a hard, cold anger. She talked about nothing but justice for Billy. Her mother had screamed Billy out of the house the day he had gotten out of the hospital. Max had shouted her way between them and resorted to leaving with Billy when her Mother had refused to listen. They had stayed with Steve for a few days, until Hopper came to the door with word that her Mother had agreed to testify at the trial.

Turns out, Billy hadn’t been the only person Neil liked to throw around to get his way. After that, a number of previous girlfriends of Neil’s had come forward, faces that painted the man’s past, from first loves to Billy’s Mom and to Max’s. The lawyers uncovered leads from all over California, deals made with sketchy people, drunken assaults that his friends in the police had covered up for him. Every day, it seemed something else was discovered and the pile of evidence against the man grew and grew until even Steve with his worries had to be optimistic that there was no way the man could ever go free.

The journey to the courthouse was silent and Steve had sat in the passenger seat of the Camaro, his leg bouncing enough to make the car shake until Billy had huffed out a sigh and placed his hand heavy on it.

Neil Hargrove stood tall and proud in the box, eyes like fire as he watched Billy come forwards and answer the lawyer’s questions. He told the whole story of his life with him, each hit, each beating, eventually how he had watched his mother meet her end by his hands.

Steve had been so proud of him, his hand clutched in Joyce’s as he watched Billy stand tall, tell the horrific story with tears shining in his eyes, voice strong. Blue eyes had turned to Steve as he climbed down from the stand, looking relieved and a million years younger.

Max had been next, then her mother, then all those faces of people that had nothing but bad things to say about the infamous Neil Hargrove. Day after day, Steve sat there, jittering in his seat, surrounded by his friends who held him and made him feel hope.

Each night after the trial Billy would crawl into bed with Steve and lie quietly in his arms. Steve would stroke his curls, kiss his head and tell him everything was going to be okay. His silence was the worst part. His face stoic and emotionless.

On the last day, he sat with Max, both of them holding on to each other’s hands in silence. Steve hovered close, casting worried glances to them while Joyce handed him coffee and Hopper clapped him on the back.

When they are called to the room, Steve is ready to throw up. They sit in the uncomfortable wooden pews, watching Neil Hargrove get escorted into the room. They stand for the Judge and Jury re-entering the room and Steve feels his heart in his mouth.

“Neil Hargrove. You stand accused of the murder of Monica Hargrove, your wife of eight years, mother to William Theodore Hargrove. You are accused of a series of continuous assaults on a minor. Assaults on nine woman. Assaults on your current wife, Susan Hargrove, mother to your step-daughter Maxine Mayfield.”

Steve stares at the back of the man. The hard stance he takes, staring defiant at the judge as he waits for his sentence to pass. He feels his lip curl in disgust and tears his gaze away. Billy presses his hand into Steve’s and clings on like he is his lifeline. Steve clutches back, thumb rubbing across his skin erratically, taking comfort in his strength as he sits there with his back straight, staring straight to the judge.

“I hereby sentence you to a lifetime's imprisonment.”

Steve feels the breath blow out of him and sags in his seat. Movement erupts all around. Neil Hargrove shouting and cursing as he is dragged away out the door to face his sentence. The rest of the courthouse empties out, people talking here and there. He can hear Joyce and Hopper talking with Max, feels Dustin jumping about behind him with the rest of the kids.

He turns to Billy and he will never forget the look on his face when he turns to him.

He throws his arms around his neck and buries his face into his hair, feels him sag and blow out a heavy sigh against his neck. He feels lose; Steve never realised the tension that was always present in his shoulders. Now, for the first time since they met, Billy feels like he’s at peace, like he’s relaxed and calm.

They go back to Steve’s house after. He cooks up a huge pot of pasta, a recipe his grandmother taught him long ago when she was still alive and came over to visit from Italy. He revels in the noise and movement in the house, the kids running around full of energy, Hopper and Joyce laughing with Nancy and Johnathan in the living room, glasses of his father’s good wine in their hands. Music plays from his records in the hallway, the sun streams in through the sliding door windows and the pool’s water glints at him.

Billy finds him stirring a pot of sauce, wraps his arms around his waist and kisses him firmly. He ditched the suit almost as soon as he got in the house, sporting his blue jeans and half opened shirt look once more. His curls had been pulled back into a tie at the trial and though Steve had appreciated the look on him, he enjoyed tangling his fingers in those soft tresses more.

“Thank you,” he says, kissing him again tasting of red wine and his cigarettes.

Steve grins and settles his arms on his shoulders, Billy’s looped around his waist as they sway to the music drifting in from the other room.

He feels happy. Like a dark cloud had been blown away from his sky leaving nothing but the blinding light of Billy’s smile. He feels invincible, like he can do anything. He sees the same reflected in Billy’s eyes and for the first time in a very long time he looks forwards to tomorrow and everything that comes after.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and supporting this story. I've enjoyed writing this story so much and I'm so glad so many of you did too. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting and leaving kudos! 
> 
> On to the next one!
> 
> V


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